The latest issue of ‘The Economist’ has an interesting article about the value of real estate professionals.  The piece questions why estate agents in Brittain charge 2%-3% of the sales price as commission and typically do 40 – 50 deals a year while American agents charge double that and average 7 transactions a year.  Here, please read it for yourself.

It does make you wonder.

And there is some pretty good speculation on the part of the author, too . . . ok:  maybe (s)he gets a little carried away near the end of the piece but I think for the most part the points are well made.

Here’s what I remember:

I was running a Century 21 office in Georgia in the early 80′s with an average sale price at about $100,000.  Commission splits to agents were reasonable:  in the 60%-65% range for solid producers.  The Franchisor announced their new premiere award, the Centurion.  At that time, an agent needed to generate $150,000 in Gross Commission Income to the office or close 50 sides of business to win.  Because our price range was lower and our commissions less, my agents found it hard to conceive of generating $150,000 in commissions.  But they could imagine doing 50 deals a year . . . and they did.

I remember being on the Convention shuttle that year with my first award winning agent.  We were comparing notes with another award winner from the San Francisco area.  Each had won the same award, the Centurion.  My agent was sharing that she’d done 55 closed sides and asked what the other agent did.  The answer:  12.

It would be hard to tell which agent delivered the best service to her client, but I’ll tell you this:  as a buyer or seller I’ll take the 50 deal a year person every day.  That’s a person who fights and claws her way through a transaction, who learns how to make things work and brings all of that street smarts to the table.  That’s a high value addition to the transaction, worth every penny whether Set Fee or Percentage Based.

While I do have a problem with high percentage based commissions, I think a bigger issue right now is poor productivity.  How can we hold ourselves out as knowledgeable experts when all we’re doing is 5 or 6 or 7 deals a year?

The Value of A REALTOR is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Exactly one day after I went off about Social Media, look what shows up on the cover of the California REALTOR Magazine! I seem to be swimming upstream here

This Is Funny is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

I just got through with a webinar on the latest social media app – the one Zucherberg paid a billion for.  I say I ‘got through’ with it, not that I completed it.  After 32 minutes I could not find a compelling reason to invest any more time.  Oh, the presenter was good and information was . . . informative.  But I just couldn’t make the leap to understanding how this thing was going to make me any money.

Look, it’s true:   I’m old.  But I’m hip-old.  I can tech it up with the best of them.  I understand technology and use it constantly.  I get excited over the next great thing.  But there is a naked emperor in the room and I can’t believe I’m the only one who sees him!

Our industry is bombarded with ‘gurus’ touting the benefits of social media in our business.  I am not sure if any of the ‘gurus’ ever sold real estate or ever sold much, but they sure are talking and we sure are listening.  Still, I have yet to hear from anyone who can point at Facebook, Twitter, Printerest, Google+, Instagram, etc. and say without reservation that the app (all by itself) created a single new client who generated income.  I’m sure the stories are out there, but I haven’t heard them; which tells me it’s a pretty rare phenomenon.

Kirk Eisele taught me about the ‘Network Effect.’  That’s something that occurs when there are enough people in a group that the group becomes valuable.  An example would be Facebook.  A large part of their revenue stream comes from selling highly targeted pay-per-click ads.  When Facebook had just a few thousand members, the value of those ads – the value of Facebook - was minimal.  But when Facebook started talking in terms of millions of users, the ‘Network Effect’ had been achieved and each new member increased the value of Facebook as a marketing tool.  (The ‘Network Effect’ is something Facebook has all over Google +).

So, it seems to me that you’ll make money with Facebook not by having a page and posting and liking and commenting, but by tapping into Facebook’s strength – that ‘Network Effect’ – and buying pay-per-click ads aimed at homeowners in your target market.  Honestly, I think it’s one of the best marketing vehicles for real estate today.

Tammy Patzer helped me understand that, by themselves, social media platforms – heck, all electronic platforms – rarely produce adequate or consistent results. But there is a synergy that happens when you are in a dozen places online, and that synergy yields better results all around.  You have to think of it as a world wide WEB – just like a spider WEB – and the more strands to your web, the more flies you’re going to catch.  So Facebook, Twitter and Instagram aren’t the stars, they are the supporting cast.  Yet I see brokers investing time into Facebook who have done nothing to localize or optimize the star of the show:  their Help-U-Sell website.

When I got my first real estate license – you know, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth – I started noticing a lot of people coming into the business looking like they were going to set the world on fire.  And sometimes they did.  But more often, they’d get bogged down on organizing their farm or researching the market or mastering the MLS . . . .in other words, doing things that looked important but kept them from doing the things that would make them productive (like going out, meeting people and asking:  wanna buy?  wanna sell?).

Today I think we have the same group passing through.  But today they’re investing all of this time in social media, thinking that somehow it’s going to make them tons of money.  It’s not.  Face Time - time spent eyeball to eyeball with people in your marketplace - is what will help you maximize your productivity and your income. Your electronic life is there to make staying in touch easier and less time consuming so that you can have MORE FACE TIME.

I love what’s happening for Ken Kopcho this year.  Since January his production is way up.  He’s having a good year.  He’s using his electronic tools, his websites, his Facebook, and even jumped on Zillow with both feet.  But when you ask him why he’s doing so much better he’ll tell you:  More Face Time.  Not more Facebook time, more Face Time.

So can we please return to common sense?  This is a people business.  When people need help with a big project – like buying or selling a home – they look for knowledgable practitioners they like and trust.  Likeability and trustworthiness are rarely established through typing and clicking.  It usually takes a handshake and a smile.

Grousing About Social Media is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Inman is out this morning with an analysis of housing trend stats compiled by Realtor.com.  Not only is the news good, it bolsters something I talked about in November and December of last year:  the very real possibility of a housing shortage.  Really:  we have pent up demand, fence sitters becoming motivated, great rates, some relaxing in lending (well . . . some), and almost no new construction in five years.  Put it all in can, shake it up and you get:  low inventory and high demand – a recipe for rising prices.

In a dramatic chart, Inman points out that, across America,  inventories last month were down 21.48% over what they were a year ago.  And the 2011 figure was 9% lower than 2010! That’s a 30%+ reduction in two years.  Also, the median age of inventory – the number of days on market – was down almost 20%, 2012 vs. 2011:  things are selling 20% faster than they were a year ago.

The stats are nice, but you’ve been telling me this for months.  When asked how bad things are (by those wonderfully positive attitudes in my life), I always say the same thing:  anything salable has multiple offers.  What are you waiting for?

A good friend in Atlanta just sold her house for top dollar in a week.  Of course, she worked like a mule for 3 weeks getting ready to sell, including paying a professional stager about $250 for a 3 hour consultation.  She says that was some of the best money she ever spent, that the advice is what gave her the edge.  (Help-U-Sell brokers, are you ready to dust off those advertising banners we used so liberally a few years ago? Sold in 16 days, Seller saved $6,346!)

Inman goes on to present the ten markets with the biggest drop in inventory over the past year.  Some of the biggest drops were in areas where the housing crisis has hit hardest:  Arizona, Florida, and California.  Of course, some of that might be attributable to that mysterious ‘shaddow inventory’ I keep hearing about:  the large number of foreclosures being held back by lenders today.  Somebody tell me:  is this for real?  Or is it just more gloomy cocktail party babble?

So, here, according to Realtor.com and analyzed by Inman, are the top ten markets with the largest drop in inventory, March 2012 over March 2011:

10.  Portland, Or/Vancouver, Wa

Inventories down  38.79%            Median Price $249,900

9.  Orlando, FL

Inventories down  39%                  Median Price $155,000

8.  Atlanta, GA

Inventories down  39.26%           Median Price $159,900

7.  Seattle – Everett – Bellevue, WA

Inventories down  39.38%           Median Price $314,900

6.  Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Inventories down  $39.66%       Median Price $168,000

5.  Miami, Fl

Inventories down  $42.34%       Median Price $269,000

4.  Fresno, CA

Inventories down  45.56%         Median Price $159,900

3.  Phoenix, AZ

Inventories down 48%                Median Price $179,000

2.  Bakersfield, CA

Inventories down 50.35%         Median Price $139,900

1.  Oakland, CA

Inventories down 51.91%          Median Price $336.120

What are the stats in your area?  Share them here, I’d love to know!

And, by the way, if it hasn’t occurred to you already, NOW IS THE TIME TO BUILD INVENTORIES!  One of the great truths of our industry is that the company/office/broker who has inventory has all the business he/she/it can handle.  Go get it.

The Best ‘Toldja So’ News! is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Nick Taylor from Zillow spoke to the Help-U-Sell team at our Success Summit last November.  He brought a wealth of good information, not only about Zillow but also about online marketing in general.  In the four months since I’ve heard from several brokers who have increased their lead generation success using what they learned.  Nick just revised that presentation and posted it online.  It’s still a presentation – and would be best with a presenter (Nick), but the slides are full of good information if you simply read them.  Here it is:

Nick Taylor’s Online Marketing Presentation

Building and Managing Your Online Presence is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

On today’s Power Hour Web Conference, I asked all Help-U-Sell brokers to do a little analysis.  I asked them to see just how accurate the big real estate aggregation sites (Trulia, Zillow, et al) are in their local marketplaces.  I asked that they search for homes for sale in a reasonable, manageable price range in their own Zip Code on, say, Zillow  and then to compare those results with the same search done on the MLS.  This is the same experiment the broker mentioned in my last post did – the one where she found 159 bad or questionable listings out of the 220 her search turned up on the aggregator site.  But I’m asking Help-U-Sell people to go one step further:  identify which listings on the aggregator site are not in MLS and then find out why.  Are they duplicates?  Old sold listings that have not been purged?  Are they FSBOs or broker listings not on MLS?  It’s probably an hour’s worth of effort but I think it will pay big dividends.

See, the aggregators are getting slammed right now for having bad or stale data.  It is my belief that the housing information available on your own Help-U-Sell website with an IDX feed from the local MLS is far more up to date and accurate than anything a national site could offer.  What I want to do is document that – locally, office by office.  We can then start talking with consumers about this and (hopefully) switch them off the national sites (where they are vulnerable to any agent)  and on to our own.

Please, Help-U-Sell Brokers: Get Busy!  Do this book work and share your results with me.  And if you’d like a little inspiration, check out this article from today’s Inman News

Please Do The Analysis! is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Yesterday, Kendra Gemma sent me a link to an article in the San Diego Union Tribune about the real estate syndication flap.  That, in itself, is pretty amazing:  Kendra, who is in Sarasota, is sending me a link to an article in my hometown newspaper!  (Here is a link to the article)

The piece was a rehashing of the syndication battle but focused on one of the underlying truths about the big aggregator sites (Trulia, Zillow, Et. Al.):  their data is littered with errors and inaccuracies.  It’s easy to see why:  Zillow, for example, receives real estate listing data feeds from dozens of sources.  Your Help-U-Sell listing may get to Zillow via your MLS, your ListHub account, Help-U-Sell, personal input, and on and on.  Zillow has an algorhythm that kicks in when it spots duplicate listings and grants priority to feeds they deem most reliable, but it has to recognize the listings in question as duplicates first.  So there are duplicates on Zillow.  And status changes are often mishandled by agents and/or syndicators, so there is the potential for many homes listed as ‘For Sale’ on Zillow actually being sold and closed.

One San Diego broker did a test last month.  She went ‘one of the popular real estate search sites’ (unnamed) and did a search for houses in her Scripps Ranch Zip Code:  92131. She then did the same search in her MLS and compared the results.

There were 220+ results on the search site.

• 54 were not for sale on the MLS

• 46 were condos, although she limited her search to houses.

• 24 had sold. One dated back more than a year.

• 17 were contingent.

• 10 were in escrow.

• 8 were expired, canceled or withdrawn.

If you do the arithmetic, there were problems with 159 of the 220 results!  The article mentioned that this particular broker has a problem with syndication in general, and I have no idea whether or not that played into the results, BUT I think you’d be wise to do your own search and comparison for your area.  And, please, when you do:  share the results with me!

(Before we go any further let me remind you that I LIKE Zillow.  They took an opportunity on which the REALTOR community turned its back and quickly became the home search tool of choice for consumers.  Bravo.  Now they kick off leads like crazy to brokers who are sharp enough to pay their price.  Instead of moaning about how wrong that whole scenario is, I think it’s wiser to recognize that at this moment in time, Zillow is a lead generating titan, and to find ways to tap into that flow of potential buyers and sellers. )

Here is a lesson in packaging.  I found it  not in the article, but in the comments to it:

Mark and Karla Stuart, Prudential California Realty:  We were so frustrated with the innacuracies created by all of the different IDX sites, including Trulia and Zillow, we created our own….exclusively for San Diego County. It is 100% accurate, and doesn’t waste our client’s time with “Pending” and “Sold” listings, and is updated overnight, every night. Our goal was to be 100% accurate with regards to what is coming from the realtor’s database, the MLS. Though expensive, it has served our customers quite well. http://www.freesandiegosearch.com

Wow!  Their website sounds like a dream come true!  No inaccuracies!  Just as up-to-date as the local MLS!  You can’t beat that! And you know what?  It’s the same IDX feed you have you your website. The feed you have on your Help-U-Sell site comes straight from the MLS, every night, and is as accurate as the MLS is at that moment in time.

It’s time to start working on how we communicate this to potential buyers.  It has to be done quickly and elegantly during the first meeting.  Something like:

Agent:  How long have you been looking?

Buyer:  Oh, a few weeks, I guess.

Agent:  You found me on Zillow, is that how you’ve doing your searches?

Buyer:  Yes.

Agent:  It is very easy to use, I know. . . but have you noticed how many homes on there are not really for sale?

Buyer:  Well, now that you mention it . . .

Agent:  They have a real challenge there; it’s because they’re trying to do a local job on a world-wide platform.  They get housing information from so many sources it even confuses them!  Listen, how about letting me give you access to the local MLS – without all the data from Boston and St. Louis and Puerto Rico gumming up the works!  You’ll have the most accurate and best information on houses for sale today in this market?

Buyer:  You can do that?

Agent:  Sure.  I just need an email address and phone number and I can set you up with a buyer’s account  on my website.  You can search to your heart’s content, save listings, even set up email alerts when new properties that meet your needs come on the market.  Plus, any time you have a question or want to see something, I’m just a click away.

Buyer:  Sounds pretty good.

It’s the same basic pitch the Listingbook folks use.  Of course, their feed is real-time, not once a day, and they have ways of tracking buyer behavior on their site that are very powerful.  But the same concept applies:  The most popular home search tool buyers have is loaded with bad data.  You can give potential buyers a better search tool without the inaccuracies.  I’m suggesting you set a registration threshhold on your website – use either option:  3 searches and then register or register to get detailed information.  When you use your dialogue and sign up a new buyer, you go into OMS, create a buyer account for them, and communicate it back to them via email.  By doing it this way (as opposed to having them do it themselves), you’re giving them something of value.  And since the perception of Value is a key consideration when choosing a real estate professional,  it could be the start of a wonderful working relationship!

(If you haven’t read our discussion about syndication, you can access it by following these links: Syndication Storm, Syndication Update, The Final Word on Syndication and Another Word on Syndication.

The Flaw In Zillow’s Strength: Your Competitive Advantage is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Great information here about the universe of real estate Internet marketing!

Click It To See The Full Piece (there’s lots more here)!

Via: Fixr

Impressive Stats! is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Today’s Help-U-Sell Power Hour was really good. It was one Wednesday I didn’t come in with all kinds of stuff to share and instead, let the group take the call where they wanted it to go.  Seems there’s a lesson in that for me: shut up!

In talking about recruiting, the concept of the Market Segment Specialist came up.  It’s an idea that hatched on our Wednesday call several months ago.  Maurine Grisso was talking about a 55+ community she’d like to break into and said she wished she could find an agent who didn’t want to work full time, who lived in that neighborhood, to be the face of her Help-U-Sell business there.  Brainstorming resulted in a job description and title.  You can read more about this HERE, and HERE.

In my daily scan of relevant tech info, I learned that Facebook is getting ready to announce a new twist on advertising.  The new ads will be larger and will offer options for more specific targeting.  The rumor is you’ll be able to advertise to the ‘Friends’ of people who ‘Like’ a particular business.   I learned about this right after I saw a graph from Chis Smith, Chief Evangelist (!) at Inman, documenting a decline in the impact of Business Pages on Facebook. In a 30 day period, ‘Likes’ of business pages are down 15%, Comments are down 19.9% and Impressions are down 24%.   It could be that we’ve hit a saturation point with Facebook marketing and are starting to turn off from it, much as we did from Groupons not too long ago.  Groupons came out of the box like a shotgun blast, but after awhile people got tired of offers (sometimes not so good) in their email and began to turn off.  In the case of Facebook, I see an opportunity to re-examine how we use this communication tool in our businesses.  In other words:  let’s get creative once again in how we use Social Media.

Then, purely for fun, I saw a piece about the glasses Google, working in conjunction with Oakley, is likely to release later this year.  You wear them, just as you would any pair of shades, but a transparent web browser appears on the lens, enabling you to surf the web while walking around.  Using Google Maps while making your way through a foreign city would be interesting, as would using Google Goggles to identify landmarks along the way. I’m not sure whether this will be immensely silly and irrelevant or very cool.  I mean:  it seems we’re already doing that with our Smart Phones;  why would we switch?  And are we inching ever closer to having our technology actually implanted into our bodies??  If so, nerd that I am, I can’t wait!

Finally, remember, it’s the 22nd of February.  There are just 7 days left in the month (it’s leap year).  That means there are just 7 days left in the Help-U-Sell Winter Warm-Up Contest.  If you want to put on a full court press here in the closing week of the event, do so by focusing on  LISTINGS.  Get as many as possible because new listings carry the greatest weight in contest results.  What do you think?  Could you take one new listing evey day for the next seven days?  What if your State was going to take away your real estate license if you didin’t?  Could you do it then?  Uh-Huh, I thought you could.  So I think you now have your assignment:  7 new listings in 7 days.  That’s 35 additional points in the contest, which could be enough to boost you into one of the money positions!  Good Luck!

Miscellaney: Facebook Deflation, Google Glasses and the Market Segment Specialist is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

I wrote a piece a long time ago called Full Service Broker vs Limited Service Broker vs Discounter.  It remains popular.  I think it’s because the title uses terms people use when searching online.  Trouble is, the piece was really just musing.  I was trying to point out how mushy the definitions of these key concepts are in the world of real estate today.  Nobody reading that post is going to come away with a firm understanding of the various kinds of brokerages out there and few will get a feel for how we at Help-U-Sell are different and better.  So, let me take a stab at it this time being a little more pedantic.

Full Service Broker: A Broker who essential takes over the task of selling a home. Usually that means the seller does nothing but sit back and wait for a contract and then a closing. I could be more granular in the description – break it down a little further – but I don’t think that’s necessary.  When you list with a Full Service Broker, you expect that you are turning the messy task of selling your home over to someone else.  Your job, once you have the house in tip top shape, is to simply disappear anytime anybody wants to see the home and to be patient.  Generally speaking Full Service Brokers charge a percentage based commission in the 5% – 8% range (although real estate sales commissions, whether percentage based or not, are fully negotiable between the broker and homeowner and no standard or even standard range exists).  That can get pretty pricy.  Think about it:  the owner of a $300,000 home with $100,000 in equity who agrees to pay a, say, 6% commission is paying $18,000: almost 20% of their equity!  And don’t get me started on the guy down the street in the smaller house worth $250,000 who will pay the same broker the same percentage but, in his case, it’s only $15,000!  Why is the first guy paying $3,000 more for the exact same service?? It makes no sense (it really doesn’t)!

Discounter: These brokers focus on the commission and cut it to levels Full Service Brokers cannot meet.  Using the above hypothetical examples, a Discounter might take the listing for say, 4%, a significant savings for the seller.  But here’s the thing about Discounters:  they use the same business model the Full Service Brokers have. They are on the same planet, in the same universe.  If they’re going to operate on that planet for less revenue, something else is going to have to give.   Think about it:  If you find a hammer at Ace Hardware for $4 and then spend the rest of the day shopping until you find a Discount Hardware Store who sells the same item for $3, you may have a bargain!  Or maybe you don’t.  You gave up something to get that dollar off the hammer.  You had to spend you time and money driving around to find the store and the hammer (their profit margins are so small they can’t afford to be visible or easy to find), you probably had nobody on the floor to help you, you may have had to dig through disorganized bins to find your hammer and you may have had to dig until you found one in good shape.  There are trade-offs for this kind of savings, and there are with the Discounter’s view of real estate too.  The quantity and quality of marketing the discounter does will probably be reduced, the amount of personal attention the seller receives will probably be less (after all this broker has to do big volume to compete and has less time), and let’s just hope there’s not much else going on when the offer comes in. You don’t want your Discount Broker watching the clock and counting the seconds and thinking about wrapping this negotiation up so he can get on to the next one!

Limited Service Broker: This is a term the Full Service and Discounter Brokers invented to diminish the value of Brokers who don’t represent anyone in a transaction.  The model is different this time.  Usually it involves a set fee, often paid up front and non-refundable.  The Broker then takes the property information and does very limited marketing, usually just putting the property into MLS or on a FSBO website.  There is no hand-holding, no showing, no open houses, no communication, no assistance with pricing and strategy. All they are providing is access to a few marketing tools you probably don’t have access to on your own.  The kicker is, if you pay an MLS only Limited Service Broker to put your house in the MLS, you’re also going to have to be prepared to pay the other broker who sees the listing in MLS and then comes in with a buyer!  Suddenly, that rock bottom front fee is not looking like quite the bargain you expected!  Some Limited Service Brokers do provide representation – which means they look out for your best interest and get involved in negotiations and make sure the deal goes as planned to closing – but it’s often at an additional fee.

Help-U-Sell is something else all together.  We operate on a different planet than the three guys above.

We recognize that technology has made marketing a properly priced home pretty easy, and pretty standard.  The idea that your agent needs to create a completely customized, personal marketing campaign for your individual home is actually a little absurd today unless you are in some astronomical price range or in a completely unique boutique type situation.  Marketing is:  pricing the home properly, starting a buzz locally through signs, flyers, postcards, MLS, past clients and so on, making the property easy to find online via various websites (the more the better), social media outlets, video, QR codes and so on, and then being sharp as a tack when an inquiry comes in to make sure that, if the prospect is right for the home, the’ll get to see it.  It’s not rocket science.  It takes a professional working every day in the real estate business to do it well, to manage it and keep it on track, but it doesn’t take a super-human or even a star.

We also recognize that the best thing we can do for all of our sellers is to generate leads – potential buyers who contact our office and with whom we develop a working relationship.  And that’s what our marketing is designed to do: generate leads, not just for your individual house but for all the houses we have in inventory.  Truth is:  the caller rarely buys or even wants to see the house that motivated the call.  Once they have the information they often discover that there is something missing or not matching their needs.  That’s where the developing relationship with the agent on the other end of the line comes in.  If we really know our business, if we really know our inventory, if we are really good at listening, we probably have something else in inventory that would be perfect for this buyer . . . and that’s how we market your home.  A great Help-U-Sell office is like a clearing house for buyers and sellers, or maybe more like a buyer/seller dating service!

We acknowledge that there are a number of activities ordinary brokers routinely take on that might be better handled by the seller, and if the seller is willing to take on these generally easy tasks, they can achieve significant savings.  If the seller is up for it, we will coach them on how to hold their own open houses.  We’ll show them how to walk through the home with a prospective buyer.  We’ll provide them tools to use in spreading the word to friends, neighbors and co-workers.  If they can find a buyer through this kind of easy participation, we can cut them an amazing deal on our fee.  After all:  they’ve produced the buyer!  And, oh by the way, not all of our sellers opt in to participating in this way, and that’s ok.  We can still save them big time over ordinary brokers.  The good news about seller participation is that it is a lead generator for us – and since lead generation and capture is how we get our listings sold, all of our sellers benefit when one of them holds an open house.  Let me be a little more clear.  One of the tasks most sellers are not comfortable doing is following up with buyers who come through their home.  That’s great:  we don’t ask them to do that.  We do it for them.  Their job is to collect contact information on everyone who comes to their open house (essentially, nobody comes in without signing in – that just makes sense).  They share that with us and we make the follow-up call.  Sometimes the buyer just needs a little clarification or next-step help to move forward on the property, but more times, they’ve eliminated the property because it didn’t quite match their needs. And so we have yet another lead that might be perfect for one of our other listings.

Because we design our offices and our marketing to be big lead generators -and because leads, properly handled, drive the sale of our listings – our agents have a much more manageable job description.  You see, the ordinary real estate Broker builds his business by adding agents, agent after agent.  The only way the ordinary Broker can get the large number of agents required to make his business viable is by offering prospective agents HUGE commission splits.  Because the ordinary Broker has fewer dollars to work with after paying those huge splits, he can’t afford to orchestrate and implement the kind of lead generating marketing program the Help-U-Sell broker can.  Instead, the ordinary Broker delegates this responsibility to his agents who generally just do their own thing . . . which is not to market or generate leads, but to advertise in hopes that their latest ad will show the anxious seller that they are really working.   In a Help-U-Sell office that is all handled by the Broker.  Our Brokers are in charge of and responsible for marketing, for creating all of those leads that turn into buyers and sales.  Our agents are there to take care of the buyer leads our marketing has created.  Period.  We don’t ask them to market or to build our business on the strength of their sphere of influence, to prospect for listings or call on FSBOS.  We ask them to take the leads we’ve generated for them and to take incredibly good care of them as they find their dream home.  Building and maintaining listing inventory is the broker’s job, converting buyer leads into sales is the agent’s job.  And it’s a wonderful, manageable job!  Compare that with the job description of an ordinary agent who is expected to do everything from soup to nuts, essentially running his or her own real estate company within the Broker’s company!  No wonder they burn out so quickly!

We recognize that a  buyer for a particular home might come from several sources and that the cost of acquiring a buyer varies from source to source . . . and we price our services based on which source produced the buyer.  Ordinary real estate is a one-size-fits-all world.  Usually, when you list with an ordinary broker, the high percentage based commission you are agreeing to pay is designed compensate four different entities:  the Listing Agent and Listing Office, the Selling Agent and Selling Office.  But in most cases you’re going to pay that same high percentage based commission even if there is no outside agent or company involved in securing the buyer.  In fact, you’re probably going to pay full fare even if YOU find the buyer.  With Help-U-Sell the fee is based on where we had to go to find the buyer.  If you find the buyer through an open house or talking it up at work, you pay just our low set fee – usually thousands less than you’d pay an ordinary broker.  If you want, we’ll ask the buyers agents in our Help-U-Sell office to go to work trying to drum up a good buyer for the house and if they are successful, we’ll have to pay them as well . . . but you’ll still save thousands over what you’d pay most ordinary brokers.  Finally, if we have to go into MLS to find a buyer (and we don’t always have to!), you’ll pay your Help-U-Sell low set fee and you’ll have to take care of that outside agent and broker -which will be relatively expensive.  You’ll still save, but just not quite as much.  And, if you elect to go full-bore on marketing your home, if you do elect to participate, if you ask our Help-U-Sell buyers agents to get involved and you do opt to go into the MLS . . . and then you find the buyer yourself . . . all you’re going to pay is the low set fee, saving you maximum dollars.

There are a lot of other differences between what we do and what the other guys do, whether they are Full Service, Limited Service or Discounters.  But most are technical twists on how we operate our offices.  By the way:  that is a key to how we’re able to charge less and still maker more: we operate our offices very differently from ordinary brokers.  We’ll save those twists for another discussion and leave this one where it is.  I think it’s clear that we are different.  We don’t fit any of the definitions that the industry has put on itself.  We are a different category because we approach the task of selling a home differently.  And one of the big differences is that we make sense.

Clarifying Terms: Full Service Broker, Limited Service Broker, Discounter, Help-U-Sell is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog