Category: Listings

A Marketing Lesson

Sometimes great marketing is so simple, so basic, hardly hi-tech, not even expensive.  Let me tell you what I saw today.

Early this morning I went over to the Morley Field Velodrome.  It’s a bike racing oval in San Diego’s Balboa Park – a wonderful thing where spandex clad riders tear after one another on banked curves and slanted straighaways.  Today they were having their regularly scheduled bicycle swap meet – an occasional event where local bike shops and individuals sell everything bicycle.  I’d heard about it and wanted to see for myself.

‘Get there early!’ my friend said, so there I was, in line behind about 200 others at 8:15 am.  ‘What time do they open the gates?’ I asked the couple in front of me.  ‘Oh, usually around 9,’ was the reply.  That’s where I woosed out.  It was chilly, I was in shorts and had nothing in particular to purchase . . . no way I was going to stand there in the cold for 45 minutes!  If I’d wanted to buy a $2,000 bike for $1,200, it would be worth it, but I was only curious.  So I left.

Pulling out of the lot I came face to face with an open house directional sign with a brilliant flourescent pink flag on top.  It’s a local independent broker I don’t really know . . . but I like the neighborhood so I figured, what the heck else am I going to do at 8:30 am on a Sunday (seeing how I’ve given up pancakes)?

So I started on my pilgrimage to the open house.  From my starting point to the property was about 2 miles.  In that distance I counted – get this – 21 directionals, each one with a bright pink fluorescent flag on top.  These were nice signs:  A-frames all in excellent shape.  As I neared the property and, I guess, the center of her target market, I started seeing bus benches with her distinctive logo – the same one that was on the directional signs. By the time I got to the house, I’d counted 7 of them.  That’s 28 impressions on only one of the routes to the house.  I have no idea how many other routes she mapped.

Of course, when I got to the house I discovered it was open from 1pm – 4pm in the afternoon, that it was overpriced (in my humble opinion) and not much to look at from outside.  The flyer box was full, tough; and interesting:  the house next door and one across the street had staked flyer boxes in the yards with a small rider sign stating ‘Coming Soon.’  It was the same agent.

How many times have we heard it?  Signs are your best marketing tool.  But how many of us go to this extent to maximize their power?  I can’t remember who it was on our regular Wednesday Power Hour call who talked about using as many as four directionals at an intersection for an open house.  I was amazed a that; but it was nothing like this!  Overpriced or not, you know that broker had traffic today, whether she ran an ad or not.  She may even have sold the property or one (or both) of the others on the block.  I think it would be a safe bet that she picked up a good buyer or two as well.

Think about it.  I saw, roughly $600 worth of directionals in my two mile drive.  They are reusable, so she’ll get much more mileage out of them than she did today.  The bus benches are about $250 a month and I saw 7 – that’s $1,750 a month, a healthy budget especially since she probably has more that I didn’t see.  But they are keeping her in that top of mind spot in her target market so that every other bit of marketing she does is that much more effective.  Best of all, it’s safe to say she had a productive Sunday afternoon . . . and what is your time worth?

Remember:  we are in a turf war.  You’re fighting for control of a little piece of real estate located between the ears of everyone who lives in your target market.  The name of this place is ‘The Best Real Estate Company To Call.’ And the company who wins it will do it with visibility and consistency.  My hat’s off to this local independent broker today:  you showed me Help-U-Sell marketing at it’s finest.  Hey – maybe we should talk…

 

The Best ‘Toldja So’ News!

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.

 

How Do You Talk About Marketing?

Marketing has undergone a huge change over the last decade.  Unfortunately, your clients’ ideas about marketing haven’t.  Most still believe that an ad in the newspaper or in a Homes magazine will sell their house . . . so your challenge in the Listing Consultation is to do a credible job educating the Seller about how marketing really works in your office.  Failure to do this will result in countless ‘what are you doing?’ calls . . . and will likely lead you to do what ordinary REALTORS do . . . which is to put an ad in the newspaper to pacify the seller, knowing full well it probably will accomplish nothing.

Start by painting a different picture of your Help-U-Sell office and what you do to get property sold.  You have a marketing system that includes lots of internet marketing, some direct mail, a little print media (and more), all designed to generate buyer inquiries into your office.  When the inquiry comes in, your staff expertly handles it, captures contact information and earns the right to help the caller find their dream home.  Sometimes it is the property that motivated the inquiry in the first place but usually it’s not; it’s another home in inventory.  The office acts as a kind of clearinghouse – or matchmaker – connecting buyers and their specific housing needs to inventory.  All of the marketing you do (even pieces that don’t feature your Sellers’ listing) is working to produce the one thing needed to get the Seller’s listing sold:  Potential Buyers.

Listen:  there are a finite number of people interested in buying real estate in your market place at any given time.  Maybe it’s 50 people today or 200 people tomorrow.  The best thing you can do for your Seller is to cause as many of those people to contact your office as possible, and you do that with Marketing – not advertising, Marketing.  But how do you communicate this to a seller who expects to see his or her home in the newspaper or in the homes magazine at the grocery store?  Try this:

You know, Sue and Al, marketing is very different today than it was just a few years ago.  The National Association of REALTORS reports that nearly 90% of home buyers start their search online.  That’s why Internet Marketing is the real heart of my Marketing System.  I put your home on dozens of property websites – everything from Trulia and Zillow to REALTOR.com and the local MLS.  I also get you up on my own websites that have all been optimized to be attractive to search engines so that homebuyers can find you.

In addition, I use a lot of direct mail – things like these just listed cards and this big marketing piece that get delivered to thousands of households in the area, signage and even some print advertising in local newspapers and homes magazines.

All of my marketing is designed to do one thing – and I know you think I’m about to say ‘sell your house,’ but I’m not:  it’s designed to generate inquiries from potential buyers into my office.  You see, the best thing I can do to find the very best buyer for your home – the one who is not just qualified but also willing to pay the most for it – is to be in touch with as many buyers interested in the area as possible.  And I use my Marketing System to find them.  It’s funny though:  most times, the caller quickly eliminates the property that motivated their call; they find it’s too small or in the wrong location or doesn’t have the amenities they want.  But my staff is expert at quickly building rapport and credibility with those buyers and then matching them to houses we have in inventory that DO meet their needs.

So we use the houses we have in inventory to fuel our Marketing program . . . which produces dozens of homebuyer inquiries into the office (last month we had more than 200 inquiries).  We then match those buyers to houses we have in inventory that meet their needs.  The office, my staff and I, act as a kind of clearinghouse or an old fashioned match-maker, putting buyers together with houses that meet their needs.

The real key, though, is Marketing to Generate Buyer Leads.  We don’t just advertise your property – though you’ll see your property in our advertising – we are a marketing company and we market your home by producing leads from potential buyers.  You list with us – of course because you want to save money – but also because we have an ongoing flow of buyers coming through our office, any one of whom might be perfect for you home.   Make sense?

It’s important to have examples of your marketing with you when you meet the sellers for a listing consultation.  It is important to put your brag cards and ETMs out on the table, to show your Internet syndication diagram, and your Homes Magazine ad.  But don’t fall into the trap of describing every individual piece of advertising you do!  That only reinforces the sellers’ misconception that advertising their house will get it sold.  If that’s all it took, they could do it themselves!  Instead, simply put them out, let the seller pick them up and look them over as you continue to talk about how your office acts as a property clearinghouse.

Old style Listing Presentations would spend a lot of time doing ‘show-and-tell’ about advertising.  The idea was to overwhelm the seller with all of the different places the agent was going to advertise their home.  And by the way – that’s pretty much what your competitors are going to attempt today. Taking this tack sets up at least two false expectations for your seller:  first, that advertising is what will sell their home and,  that they should find their home in every bit of real estate advertising they see!

Be different! You should be able to convincingly present your marketing system in 5 – 10 minutes at the most if you focus on concepts – not on the individual marketing pieces you do.  You’ll find that the seller will be much more understanding and supportive of your efforts if you do.

 

Should Your Seller Do a Lease/Option – Lease/Purchase?

Disclaimer:  I am not an attorney and the ideas expressed here are those of an educated layman (me).  Rules and law governing property transactions including those mentioned here are State specific and vary from location to location.  Please do not consider this post to be ‘advice;’  and before proceeding with any property transaction seek the counsel of a qualified, local, real estate attorney.

Situation:  Your Seller has very good, even excellent credit.  He/She has never been late on their mortgage or anything else.  This is very important to them:  they’ve worked very hard over the years to budget, live within their means and meet their financial obligations.  Unfortunately they are now upside down on their house:  current market value is $225,000 and the mortgage is $250,000.  They paid $300,000 seven years ago.

Even though Short Selling has become an acceptable option for most sellers, in fact a wise choice for many, this seller just can’t go there.  But he/she wants to take advantage of the great mortgage rates and excellent deals in the marketplace right now and upgrade to a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood.  This might be a good situation for a lease/option or lease/purchase.

A Lease/Option is two things:  an Option to purchase the property on or before some date in the future, and a Lease agreement giving the Option holder possession of the property during the interim period.  The Option is usually accompanied by non-refundable Option money, which can be substantial.  The eventual purchase price for the property is either locked in at the time the Option agreement is reached OR can be ‘Market Value’ at the time the sale is eventually consummated.  In the latter case, ‘Market Value’ must be carefully defined:  is it the opinion of one appraiser?  Two?  Do we average three? or take the middle figure of the three?  And, oh, by the way:  who’s going to pay for all of these appraisals?  During the Lease period, part of the rent paid can be credited against the eventual purchase price.  The Option money, however, is only there to secure the Option:  it would be rare for any of it to apply toward purchase price.  In a Lease/Option, the purchaser is not obligated to buy the property.  If, at the end of the Option period, the buyer does not want to complete the purchase, he can either renegotiate a lease (or new sale) with the seller or move.

A Lease/Purchase is similar:  there is an agreement to purchase at a later date that is secured with cash, there is a Lease agreement governing the interim period and part of the rent may be applied toward the eventual purchase price.  But there are some differences.  First, this is not an Option situation.  The buyer is paying the seller a non-refundable fee upfront for the privilege of purchasing the property at a later date.  The purchase is not optional:  the buyer is obligated to buy or face consequences like specific performance.  Usually, in this kind of transaction, the eventual purchase price is locked down at the time the purchase agreement is ratified.  Often, the price is current market value PLUS an increment over and above.

Back in the late 70s and early ’80s we experimented with these kinds of transactions.  Back then, interest rates were spiking well into double digits.  Often the lease periods were very long and it was clear what everyone was trying to accomplish was a way around the due-on-sale clause in most mortgages.  The courts were not pleased and some sellers, buyers and agents paid dearly.  That’s another reason to get competent legal advice before proceeding here.  It was that crazy interest rate period that gave birth the first adjustable mortgages any of us had seen.  We learned to think of them as temporary financing to bridge the gap until sanity returned to the market and a refi could be done.

So, back to our Seller – the one with excellent credit and an upside down home.  You just helped a family navigate a short sale.  They are good people, no doubt, but were WAY upside down:  the home was work about 50% of what they owed!  They aren’t able to get a mortgage today but unless financial disaster strikes, will probably be in good shape in a couple of years.  They love the seller’s house and offer an Option to purchase on or before this date three years hence, secured by $10,000 (non-refundable). The eventual purchase price will be $250,000.  They’ll pay monthly rent of $2,100 on the property during the lease period and $500 of each month’s rent will apply toward the eventual purchase price (If the rental period runs the full three years, that will be $18,000 in ‘credit’ from the Seller to the Buyer).

This is attractive to the Buyer because he gets to get back into a home he loves immediately.  The $250,000 purchase price is higher than the property is worth today but he is optimistic about the economy and thinks it’s likely the property will be worth that much or more at the end of three years.  The $10,000 cash for the Option in theory will be more than offset by the credit coming back at closing.  And, if it just doesn’t work out, he doesn’t have to purchase the property.

The Seller is intrigued but cautious.  This looks like a way to preserve their good credit and make a move as well.  The $10,000 Option money will help supplement the down payment they’ll need on the new home,  And the monthly rent is $500 more than their current mortgage payment.  The biggest concern is the Option:  what if the buyer rents for 3 years and decides NOT to buy the home.  What if the buyer gets into the home and stops making rent payments?  And so on.

The first thing you would do – and you’d probably have done it long before this situation got this far – would be to put the parties in touch with a good real estate attorney.  But having said that:  what do you think the Seller should do?  What would YOU do (as James Quinones might ask)??  Do you think this kind of strategy would appeal to some of your sellers?

Oh, by the way – there is something that I forgot t mention.  It has to do with the real estate fee.  Sometimes it is due and paid at the time the Option is agreed upon and funded.  Sometimes it is not payable until the property eventually closes. It’s a negotiation.   In our hypothetical example, the Broker’s fee will be paid by the seller at Closing.  Now:  what do you think?

The Power of Zillow – The Power of Inventory

Hey!  Take a look at this:

That’s the first page of results of a search on Zillow for homes for sale in Chino Hills, CA.  Do you see the Help-U-Sell logo over on the right?  Yep.  It appears six times!  Six of the first nine listings are Patrick Wood’s!  Patrick is, of course, our franchisee in Chino Hills and he’s done about as good a job establishing the brand in his community as anyone this side of Don Taylor.  What do you think a consumer, looking for real estate in this town, who does what consumers today do (go to Zillow.com) thinks when they see this?  The compounding effect is remarkable!  The logo to the side of the listing is one of the benefits of becoming a ‘Premiere Agent’ with Zillow.  Of course, the main reason Brokers and Agents upgrade to Premiere is to have their contact information appear next to the listings of non-Premiere agents, but that’s really of minor importance to Patrick.  He gets HUGE bang for the buck from the display of the logo because he has a ton of listings! This is always true in our business:  the broker with lots of listings gets lots of leads.

This is why most of Help-U-Sell marketing is directed to potential Sellers.  If we do a good job of building inventory with our superior offer to Sellers, we’ll have all the Buyer leads we could ever want.

I don’t hear it much anymore, but there was a time when I’d occasionally hear a broker complain that they weren’t getting any leads from their website.  My reply was always the same:  ‘How many listings do you have in inventory?’  I’d usually hear something like ‘three’ or ‘five’ or ‘I’m down to two.’  They didn’t have a website problem, they had an inventory problem.  Solve the inventory problem and the leads will flow.

I mentioned that Patrick Wood has done a superb job of establishing the Brand in Chino Hills.  I want to share something else from him.  It’s a little bit of community involvement, of giving back, that really works:

That’s Patrick’s son in one of the uniforms his dad bought for the team. Once again:  same logo, prominently displayed.

Now, some Help-U-Sell purists might question the prominence Patrick gives to his own name.  I mean, one of the beauties of Help-U-Sell is that it is a system that works.  Unlike ordinary real estate businesses, it is not dependent on personality for success.  When we go out to establish the brand, we establish Help-U-Sell, not any individual.  Yet here, Patrick is branding himself just as he is Help-U-Sell.  He’s done this for eight years and today he IS Help-U-Sell in Chino Hills.  Ken Kopcho in Santa Maria, CA has done something similar with his ‘Ken Sells’ identity and website.  There’s nothing wrong with this.  If there is a negative, it is that branding yourself probably diminishes the value of your business on the open market.  If you were trying to sell a business that was built as much around YOU as around your Brand, the assumption is that it would collapse when you walked away.  An established Brand – especially one like ours, that’s built on replicatable systems – should be in a much better position to survive an ownership change.

ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE . . .

Tomorrow, Google’s new privacy policy goes into effect.  This is a logical change that probably won’t upset too many people (although some have been screaming about it for weeks).  What they’re going to do is pool all of your profile information from all Google owned products to create one master profile with all of your information in one place.  By pooling your profiles into one, they’ll have more comprehensive information about you and will be better able to serve up advertising that is apt to appeal to you.  In addition to the information you’ve provided to, say, Google+, YouTube, Blogger, etc., they will also pool your browsing history.  Again, it helps them know what advertising to serve you.

Don Gross of CNN had a pretty good piece about the change and you can read it here.  At the end of the article, he presents a handful of easy things you can to to improve your privacy in this new Google world.  I found it helpful enough to reproduce it here:

Here are a few tips on how to keep your data a little more private on some of Google’s most popular features.

Don’t sign in

This is the easiest and most effective tip.

Many of Google’s services — most notably search, YouTube and Maps — don’t require you to sign in to use them. If you’re not logged in, via Gmail or Google+, for example, Google doesn’t know who you are and can’t add data to your profile.

But to take a little more direct action …

Removing your Google search history

Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has compiled a step-by-step guide to deleting and disabling your Web History, which includes the searches you’ve done and sites you’ve visited.

It’s pretty quick and easy:

— Sign in to your Google account

— Go to www.google.com/history

— Click “Remove all Web History”

— Click “OK”

As the EFF notes, deleting your history will not prevent Google from using the information internally. But it will limit the amount of time that it’s fully accessible. After 18 months, the data will become anonymous again and won’t be used as part of your profile.

Six tips to protect your search privacy (from the EFF)

Clearing your YouTube history

Similarly, users may want to remove their history on YouTube. That’s also pretty quick and easy.

— Sign in on Google’s main page

— Click on “YouTube” in the toolbar at the top of the page

— On the right of the page, click your user name and select “Video Manager”

— Click “History” on the left of the page and then “Clear Viewing History”

— Refresh the page and then click “Pause Viewing History”

— You can clear your searches on YouTube by going back and choosing “Clear Search History” and doing the same steps.

Clearing your browsing history on Google Chrome

— Click on the “wrench” icon at the far right of your toolbar

— Select “Tools”

— Select “Clear browsing data”

— In the dialogue box that appears, click the “clear browsing data” box (there are other options you may want to use as well)

— Select “Beginning of Time” to clear your entire browsing history

— Click “clear browsing history”

Gmail Chat

When you start a chat with someone, you can make the conversation “off the record.” Off-the-record chats will not be stored in your chat history or the history of the person with whom you’re talking. All chats with that person will remain off the record until you change the status. To go off the record:

— Click the “Actions” link at the top right of the chat window

— Scroll down to “Go off the record.” Both you and your chat partner will see that the chat has been taken off the record.

What are Google’s other products?

Obviously, anything with “Google” in its name counts. But the Web giant owns other products that might not be so obvious to some folks.

— Gmail. Yes, the “G” is for Google.

— YouTube. Google bought the Web’s leading video site in 2006

— Picasa. The online photo sharing site became Google’s in 2004

— Blogger. The blog publishing tool has been Google’s since 2003.

— FeedBurner. A management tool for bloggers and managing RSS feeds. Google bought it in 2007.

— Orkut. Google’s original social-networking site isn’t big in the U.S. But it’s one of the most popular sites in India and Brazil.

— Android. Yes, you probably know this. But just for the record, Google owns the most popular smartphone operating system.

 

 

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