Can You Cancel Your Listing?

I don’t know.  That’s a legal question and the answer will vary by State and by specific Listing Agreement.  The more important question is: Why do you want to cancel your listing?  Usually the reason is one of the following:

  • No activity
  • No marketing
  • Greener Grass
  • No communication

Let’s take them in order.

If your house is not being shown, if your open house is the loneliest place in town, you have to ask why.  First, look at the market.  How long does it take a properly priced listing in your area to sell?  Is it 30 days or 300?  If the market is racing along like molasses on a cold November morning, even the best listing, offered by the best agent is not going to be shown much.  Have a conversation with your agent, get the facts, and adjust your expectations.

If it is a normal 30 – 90 day market look at the product.  By that, I mean your house.  It is a product now, one that has to compete with similar products on the market at the same time.  How does it stack up in terms of curb appeal?  Does it show well?  And most important, is it properly priced?  It can be very difficult for home owners to see their houses through a cold buyer’s eyes. History and emotion cloud the vision and the run-down-fixer-upper that’s priced 10% over market looks like a bargain-priced-palace to the seller.  Shake yourself out of that stupor!  Call your agent and ask them to show you six homes any potential buyer who might look at yours would also see.  Then come back to your house, take a careful look and talk with your agent about how to be more competitive.

By far, the biggest reason homes aren’t shown and don’t sell is price.  Did you take your agent’s advice on pricing at the time of listing?  Or did you insist that you wanted to start higher?  (after all, you could always come down)  Take a moment and watch this short video about pricing and see if it resonates with your situation:

Now let’s talk about ‘No Marketing.’  Sometimes sellers complain about marketing because they don’t see ads in the newspaper or in the homes magazine and so on.  The reason is simple: print media DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE.  Yes, that’s how you sold a house back in the ’80’s, but it’s a new world now.  Marketing takes place mostly online.  So, go to Zillow.com.  Can you find your house?  Now go to Trulia.com.  Is it there?  Go to your local MLS’s public website and see if the listing is there.  Now go to one of your agent’s major competitor’s website.  Verify that the site is displaying ALL local MLS listings and then look for yours.  If you’re finding your home online, that part of marketing is being done.

Is there a sign in the yard?  Are flyers available?  Is there a QR code on the sign or some other means for SmartPhone enabled passersby to get information about the house?

Is there a lockbox on the door?  Is the house available to be shown on short notice?  Understand that if you restrict showing activity by limiting accessibility what you’re going to get is restricted activity!  I understand that your reasons for not wanting a lockbox are probably sound and there probably is a good reason why the house can only be shown between the hours of 1pm and 5pm, Monday thru Friday . . . but if you really want to sell, maybe you better find another workaround.

Greener Grass.  There is a natural emotional response to making a major purchase.  It is called buyer’s remorse.  You fall in love with the convertible on the lot and buy it, but shortly after driving away you begin to wonder if you made the right decision.  Other cars start to look very attractive.  You know how it goes.  The same dynamic is present when you make the listing decision.  What makes it worse is that the world is full of real estate agents who will do a little courtship dance to inflame those natural doubts you are probably having.  They will imply (or flat out say) they could get you more money or that your agent isn’t doing it right or any number of things to drive a wedge between you and your chosen agent.  Of course, this kind of nonsense is highly unethical . . . but it happens all the time.

If you get this kind of song and dance from another agent, I’d suggest you ask the agent to hang on for a moment while you call your agent.  Then the three of you can discuss the problem!  Most of us are not that confrontational, so plan B would be to listen to what the other agent has to say and call your agent as soon as they leave.  When your doubts are on the rise, you need reassurance and your agent is the person who can give that to you.

Here’s the truth:  if you have a good product that is properly priced and marketed, there is very little more or different one agent or company can do over another.  If there is a difference it’s usually a matter of personality – which is not a good reason to ditch your agent and go with another – or competence.  If you’re discovering that your agent does not seem to know his or her business . . . well, where were you when you decided to sign the listing agreement?  What?  You didn’t ask how many transactions your agent was doing each year?  You didn’t ask about the experience and productivity of the office?

There are some very good real estate agents who do a handful of transactions each year.  However, they are the exception, not the rule.  There is no way an agent doing 8 deals a year (which is industry average) knows as much about putting a transaction together and solving problems as one who is doing, say, 20.  If you are just now realizing that your agent is a little greener than you’d like, get them some help!  Call their Broker (that’s the person the agent works for) and talk about it.  They will likely find a way to add a more experienced agent into the mix and you’ll be able to relax.

Finally, Communication.  Your agent should be talking to you every week whether there is anything to report or not.  You should be reviewing market activity together once a month.  If this isn’t happening, call your agent and communicate your expectation for staying in touch.  If things don’t change, call the agent’s Broker.

To summarize, if you are unhappy and want to cancel your listing, first talk to your agent.  Tell them exactly why you are unhappy and give them a chance to make it right.  If that fails, talk to the Broker.  That person is building a business based on the testimonials of happy customers.  If you are unhappy, he or she is going to want to know about it.  And you’ll probably find that the Broker will do whatever it takes to make you happy because an unhappy customer or two can greatly impact a business plan!

If talking to the Broker doesn’t help, then you probably need to seek legal advice.  A listing agreement is a legally binding contract that rarely can be cancelled unilaterally.  The last thing you want is to think you fired your agent,  list with another agent who sells the house . . . and find your are obligated to pay both agents a full commission!  It happens!

My final and most important piece of advice is this:  When you get ready to list, talk to a Help-U-Sell Broker.  This group does it differently and better.  All you have to do is look at a typical Help-U-Sell broker’s website to see how important happy customers are to them.  Testimonials are everywhere as are pictures of homes they’ve sold and how much those sellers have saved.  If being well-taken-care-of is your goal, you can’t do better than Help-U-Sell.  You can find a Broker HERE.

Saving the MOST When Selling

There is a new tool for Help-U-Sell Brokers and Agents to use with home sellers during the listing consultation process. This little video was designed to help sellers understand the benefits of participating in the marketing phase of the selling process. It’s something we’ve always offered our sellers as a means of maximizing their savings, but honestly – it’s something we haven’t done a great job of selling.

People list with ordinary brokers and then find their own buyers all the time. Unfortunately, that means nothing in terms of what they’ll pay in commission. Ordinary brokers gleefully write the deal up and then charge . . . full fare. At Help-U-Sell, if a seller finds his or her own buyer, they pay LESS – because we charge our fee based on how the house sells.

Of course, seller participation is always an option; it’s not something a seller has to do, and many choose to let their Help-U-Sell office handle everything – which is fine.  But those interested in saving the most wisely choose to take on some of the small tasks mentioned in this video.  Give a look!

THINK Before You QR

Remember when we all went crazy for QR codes?  I think I first encountered them at a NAR meeting about four years ago.  All the badges had QR codes so that a vendor, wanting to add an attendee to a mailing list only had to scan a code.  Brilliant!  And attendees wanting more information about a product only needed to scan the code.  The little square wonders were everywhere!

We did training on QR Codes, talked about them in the Power Hour, hyped them at Success Summit – and Help-U-Sell Brokers everywhere got on board.  And that’s a good thing; QR codes are a valuable tool . . . when used properly.

A QR Code is simply a LINK.  It is designed to take a smartphone enabled consumer to a specific webpage.  There is a lot in that statement, so let’s break it down.  A consumer accessing a QR Code is on a smartphone.  He or she is not on a PC or MAC – if they were,  we’d just send them a link.  We don’t send QR Codes via email or text because those items are most likely being read on the same smartphone the consumer would have to use to access them — which is impossible.   OR they are being read on a PC or MAC, in which case WE SHOULD HAVE JUST SENT A LINK!

Use QR Codes on your signs.  They enable smartphone enabled consumers to instantly get to the listing’s individual webpage.  Use QR codes on other forms of printed marketing, but only if they link to webpages that provide more information than what’s on the printed piece.  Don’t put a QR Code on a flyer if it’s just linking to an online version of the flyer!  Do put a QR Code on the back of your business card with the caption:  ‘Find Out About Help-U-Sell’ and link it to a good overview page on your website (or maybe to the great video overview).

Above all, THINK before you QR.  Who are you trying to reach?  How will they likely access your information (smartphone, PC, MAC?).  Is the information you are linking to going to enhance their experience or just repeat it?  And for a little QR inspiration, watch this:

New Consumer Videos (and more to come)

I’ve done a lot of video with Help-U-Sell.  Most of it was training oriented, usually as part of Help-U-Sell University.  In those cases the audience was internal:  I was speaking to the  family about  Help-U-Sell and how it works.

But lately, Robbie has me working on a series of short videos directed at consumers.   The idea is to present some of the basic information a buyer or seller should have before meeting with a Help-U-Sell broker or agent.  Already available is a short piece on pricing your home to sell.  It makes strong  points about what market value is and the problems overpricing creates.  The  goal is to help sellers set a marketable price at the time of listing rather than to overprice with the idea that they can always come down.

Brokers are encouraged to add this video to their websites and then share a link to it with home sellers before they arrive for a listing consultation.  It is also short enough to be used during the consultation.

Last week, I completed a 4 1/2 minute video on how to save the most with Help-U-Sell.  It focuses in on seller participation and some of the easy things a seller can do to find their own buyer – things like taking flyers to the neighbors and to their workplace and holding their own open houses.  Robbie has shipped that one off to Theo in South Africa to apply the graphics and it should be available in a matter of days.

I know we want to do one on HOW to hold your own Open House, getting into safety, staging, signage, signing in, showing and  so on.  But I’d be very curious to now what you Help-U-Sell brokers and agents would like to see.  What other topics directed at consumers should we explore?  I’m looking for items that would help you do a better job for buyers or sellers.

Lead Generation II: Digital Marketing

It’s all about the Internet.  We know that.  We hear it all the time.

Like:  89%+ of all homebuyers begin their search on the Internet.  Like:  70% of home buyers use video to tour the inside of homes before physically inspecting.  Like:  home searches on Google are up 253% over the past 4 years.

Clearly, if we are going to be in the business today, we are going to have to be on the Intenet in a lead generating way.

Job one is to be FINDABLE.  My spell checker just underlined that word in red because it isn’t a real word at all.  But it should be, especially when we’re talking about consumers being able to find you on the web.  It’s not good enough to simply be there, to have a website, even a good one.  Consumers have to be able to find you, which means your website has to be attractive to Google.

(I’m using Google here to stand for all Internet search engines.  It is true there are others beside Mother G, but let’s face it:  they are irrelevant at least and copycats at best.  If you are going to generate Internet leads, you’re going to have to learn how to flirt with Google.)

So, what does Google like?  What can you put out there that will cause your web pages to inch up in the big pack of search results?  Google likes content that is:

Hyper-Local – so intimately focused on the local market that it is like a roadmap of the area.

Dynamic – which means changing.  Static content – the pages you build and publish and then forget, – will barely raise a Google eyebrow.  In essence she looks at your static website and says, ‘Eh?  Anybody could do that.  What have you done lately?’

Credible – Certainly you are credible.  You are an experienced professional and you certainly know what you’re talking about.  But that doesn’t score points with Google.  She decides you are credible largely by the other people who think you are credible and she makes that decision based on links:  who is linking to your site, referencing it, talking about it.  If Joe Schmoe is referencing your site that’s nice – and it counts – but if the Wall Street Journal is talking about you, that’s golden.  The other criteria is longevity.  If you’ve been around, building content for months and years, you are seen as more credible than the site that just launched.

Media-rich – Google knows that we users love colorful content that moves, and nothing does that better than video.  Increasingly, content that includes streaming video is king.  To understand Google’s fascination with video, simply consider this:  Google owns YouTube.

Mobile Friendly – More than half of all home searches are preformed o mobile devices and the number is growing.  To people under 30, the phone is a computer.  Whatever you do on the Internet must translate to mobile devices, both phones and tablets.

When I look at that list, I think it says you need a blog, a good blog.  A blog that updates some aspect of your business and the local market every week and does so occasionally with video.  Your real estate website is largely static:  it does not change much over time.  Use your well written, hyper-local blog to enable people to find you and then drive them to your website.

So far, everything we’ve talked about involves improving your organic search results, those that come to you simply because you are good.  But let’s face it:  everyone in our business is working towards this same objective.  You can build your visibility and findability organically, but you will rarely beat some of the huge players aiming at the same consumers.  They have too much history, too much credibility (as defined above) and too much cloudt.  But there is another way to leap-frog to the top:  buy your way there.

Paid search results appear at the top and the side of Google’s organic results.  We all know this because we have become expert at NOT paying attention to those results when we search.  Still, these ads do produce ‘clicks’ over time (if you are offering something relevant and valuable at the other end), and those clicks can result in leads.

Google Ad Words is code for advertising on Google via those pay-per-click entries that appear at the top and side of your regular search results.  You get there by ‘buying’ search phrases consumers in your area typically use when looking for your menu of services.  Others are bidding on the same search phrases, so you’re competing for space; sometimes your ad will make it, sometimes it won’t.  But even when your ad makes it to the results page, you don’t pay until someone clicks on it.

This is where the whole offer/exchange dynamic comes in.  You have to offer something in your ad that is perceived as valuable by your target consumer.  For example:  a Free Market Analysis might be perceived as valuable.  A Free E-Book on preparing your home for sale might be seen as valuable.  A Free Phone Consultation might be seen as valuable.  It is the perception of value that causes a consumer to click.  But then what?

Going hand-in-glove with Ad Words (and any pay-per-click advertising) is the creation of specific landing pages.  A landing page should do little more than gather contact information on the consumer who lands there after clicking on your ad.  Some very short descriptive information is ok, but you sure don’t want to tell your whole story on a landing page!  Anything said on a landing page should underscore the idea that what you are offering is valuable because you’re asking the curious consumer who landed there to exchange their contact information for it.

Facebook pay-per-click works in much the same way except that your  ads look more like ads, featuring graphics and so on.

Your prescription for jump-starting the digital portion of your marketing plan is as follows:

  • Whip your website into shape.  Eliminate wordy content that nobody is reading and replace it with crisp, relevant information.  Wherever possible let video do the talking for you.
  • Build some form of dynamic content into your online presence.  A blog is a great idea IF you can and will create something fresh and original at least every week.  If that’s not something you can or will do, hire someone to do it for you (like . . . oh, yeah!  ME!).
  • Invest in pay-per-click advertising.  Begin with Google Ad Words and, in time, phase in Facebook.  Your Google Ad Word budget should ideally be $10 or more a day.  $5 a day can produce results but will take, well, twice as long.
  • Before you pull the trigger on your pay-per-click ads, make sure you have effective landing pages that relate specifically to the offers you are making in your ads.
  • Be ready to respond.  I don’t mean to imply that you will be overrun with inquiries.  You won’t.  But when a click results in a consumer surrendering contact information, you need to respond immediately.  Letting an hour or two pass by without contact will turn that ember into a cold bit of ash.

Want to talk about your digital plans?  Call me:  (619) 606-2228.

 

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