HAVEN Realtors

We are on the verge of offering an exciting new tool for Haven customers.  As a matter of fact, we will let anyone who is selling their home on their own use our slide show service, even if their home is not listed through us on the MLS.  Basically, we will help you to create a virtual tour of your property.  It will be a slide show using still images of your home that you provide to Haven.  We will upload them for you and create the tour.  When it is done, we will upload it on the MLS for Haven customers, and it will be displayed on Realtor.com.  This will raise your house up in search results and get your home viewed more often on the net.  It’s and fantastic marketing tool.  Check back in a few days when we will have our official tour launch.

At Haven Realtors, you are the Quarterback and we are your team.  We let you call the shots and we are there to help you score a touch down with a bit of assistance.   Don’t ask us to go much further with the football analogy, because our specialty is real estate, not sports.  Our blog is a place for home sellers to ask questions and find honest answers.

I just got a very angry email from a customer whose property I listed on the MLS last Wednesday as “MLS Entry Only”. And I got angry myself. Not with her although she needs to read stuff more attentively in order to not get confused later. I got angry with the agent she talked to.

 I, of course, don’t care if my customers talk to other agents, they’re free to do so. But what really pissed me off was the amount of deceptive bullshit that “agent” threw at her.

That agent told her that she was listed under “Exclusive Agency” although the listing clearly says “MLS Entry Only” and that other agents never check - as I understand from her email - anything but “Exclusive Right To Sell - Full Service” listings because, apparently, they won’t get paid their commission. What a bunch of crap!

That “agent” even went further telling my customer that there is some kind of separate “special resource” (???) for all non-exclusive listings.

It’s clear to me why that other agent may have wanted to ”impress” my customer: he/she probably wanted to hit her for a full 6% listing. But you can impress people without deceiving them. Unless, of course, deception is all the skills you got.

OK, everybody realizes now that the market is tough, competition is fierce and the bottom lines get hurt. So, what would you, as a seller, look to do? Cutting your costs, right? Wrong.

Why do sellers pay hundreds of dollars to advertise on websites like ForSaleByOwner.com? Exactly: because they don’t want to pay thousands of dollars in real estate commissions. And – I dare to presume – in order to make it as easy as possible for a potential buyer to access information about the property, its location and the seller’s contacts. In other words, the whole philosophy of selling “by owner” is to cut the middleman (middlemen) out. So, what’s wrong with that?

Nothing really – unless you are a builder selling your specs. Today, I went on the aforementioned website to look what else is available beyond our old good MLS. Usually, when you look up a property there, you almost always see the seller’s name and the phone number. I said “almost” because that site is also in business of trying to sell you their “find-all-foreclosures-everywhere” stuff (please, don’t waste your money on it) so, “foreclosure property” pages have no address and no seller contacts. Instead, you are invited to “click to sign up”.

But wait. What’s going on here? I open a page with information about a nice looking brand new million-dollar spec and realize that there is no address either. How am I supposed to find it on the site touting their “Lots of Help” thing? Let’s call the builder and ask for the address! I go to the phone number and… where have I seen it? A second later, the light bulb goes off in my head: I’ve seen it just now when trying to check out another new construction on this very website, offered by a different builder. Was there the property address? Nope. Hmm…

I checked 10 other listings: none of them had the property address but all had the same phone number to call. Is somebody representing all builders here? I thought the idea of this “Lots of Help” site was providing buyers with a quick, direct and unobstructed access to sellers… Puzzled, I scrolled down to “Contact Information” and clicked on the web link Inest.com.

Ha-ha-ha! Surprise, surprise! It is one of the Lending Tree’s “babies”! As always, they are standing by to be at your “service”, dear builders! That is, the service of helping you make less money! Because, you know, LT has to give a buyer a 1% rebate when that he purchases your house. And where does that rebate come from? Bingo - your money that you would have otherwise saved had that buyer had your direct contact information and the property address (you do have your nice big sign with your phone number there, right?)

Let’s forget about greedy agents for a second. Yes, they want that 5%-6% piece of your pie but at least you know upfront: they do want to be middlemen and they do want that Exclusive Contract. Instead, let’s talk about noble LT and ForSaleByOwner.com, its “No Commission, Lots of Help” ally.

Lots of help? Sure: if they “help” you sell a $1,500,000 spec, buyer gets a $15,000 rebate (coming out of your pocket) and, of course, plus an extra amount (there’s got to be something monetary in it for LT, too).

No Commission? Well, if you insist on calling it “referral fee”, then be my guest.

So, here is my completely free and no-obligation advice: Ever thought of displaying your direct contacts when going FSBO?

More wisdom to follow.

Technorati Tags: forsalebyowner.com, for sale by owner, rip off

 If you are going “For Sale By Owner”, there is a good chance you don’t want to list your home because you don’t want to pay a 5%-6% commission to a broker. Of course, there is always a small percentage of the homeowners who do everything themselves. And, truth be told, some of them actually do it successfully. But what about the others?

“And why would I want to pay to have my house on the MLS if I already have it on a bunch of websites?” – I hear this question all the time. There are 2 answers to it:  a short one and a long one.

First, the short answer. Imagine that one day you decide to go fishing. You know for sure you’re not going to be the only one fishing today and there are only 20 fishes available for catch. Where, do you think, you would have better chances to catch one of those 20 fishes: when fishing in a pond or in the Lake Michigan? That’s exactly the difference between having your home on several websites visited by thousands of people who look for homes everywhere in the nation and having it on the brokers’ MLS visited by hundreds of agents working with buyers who look for homes exactly in your area!

Now, the long answer. About 80% of the homebuyers nowadays begin their search on the Internet – this is true. But it is also true that about 80% of these buyers end up using services of an agent when purchasing their homes. Why? Because it is always better to be represented and they usually don’t pay for their agent’s services: the commission comes out of the seller’s proceeds at closing.

Do the agents know your home is for sale? No, they don’t. They don’t go on the websites to check the listings, they use the Internet-based MLS because a) the MLS provides them with the most recent information about available properties and b) the MLS listings guarantee their compensation.

Do you get calls from agents? I bet you get plenty of calls. Do many agents say they have a buyer who always wanted to buy only your home? Of course they do – this is how they set a foot into your house to pitch you that 6% full-service listing. I did it during my first year in real estate! Quite successfully, I should add.

The fact is, very few agents who do indeed have a potential buyer for your home would call you. Because, as I said before, if your home is not MLS-listed, it does not exist for them. You may be even offering them not 3% but 6% commission, so what? Who will know and how they will be sure about it? They have dozens of other properties to choose from. This market presents us all with constantly growing inventory of homes and constantly decreasing number of homebuyers – you do the math.

If you are a homeseller who offers a commission to a buyer’s agent, you MUST have your property listed on the MLS so the agents know you are selling and you are offering them compensation.

Last Sunday, I conducted an improvised poll by calling people who sell “By Owner” just to see how quickly sellers respond. I have made 20 calls and in 14 cases nobody was there to pick up the phone. If I were a buyer or a buyers agent, 70% of the seller would have missed a chance. So, the first question: who’s supposed to sell your home? Your voicemail?

When you are selling your home in this market, you have to understand that Buyer is the absolute King! Yes, some of them will leave you a voice message but by the time you call them back there is a good chance that potential buyer has already forgotten what your home looks like and where it is. Because you are not the only seller in your area.

What about real estate agents showing homes to buyers? To start with, if your home is not listed on the MLS, the chance of getting a call from an agent who really has a potential buyer and not just a listing pitcher, is fairly remote. And, if you are not there to answer the call, the agent will most likely move on because he/she has 10-20 more homes to show to his/her clients. Still, a chance for an agent to earn a commission and one less chance for you.

You MUST be easily reachable! Because, if you are not there, your neighbor will be.

More wisdom to follow.

Technorati Tags: for sale by owner, selling a home, fsbo

Metro Detroit now leads the nation in the number of foreclosures, according to some estimates. If you are a homeseller this should be alarming for you because it means that soon hundreds and hundreds of new properties - owned by banks - will be put on the market. Many of them at unbelievably low prices because banks’ main concern is to get back the amount of money they’re owed, not necessarily to sell those properties at the market value.

I remember my trip up North last August. Usual itinerary: Petoskey, Bay Harbor, Harbor Springs. There, it looked like the entire streets were up for sale. I only wonder what it looks like further North, in the Upper Peninsula.

Again, this stuff must be alarming to you if you have your home listed with a broker. It must be 10 times more alarming to you if you’re still trying to sell “by owner” thinking you’ll save money. Think again. Because most likely you’ll lose. “I am in no hurry to sell” - I hear from the homeowners who think they know it all. Well, if you are in no hurry then why have your sing up? Take your property off the market and wait it out untill the market gets back on track.

The truth, dear homeowner, is that you DO WANT to sell or, worse, you HAVE to sell. And when you say you’re in no hurry, whom exactly you are trying to convince: me or yourself?

Only handful of homesellers can really afford to “wait and see” - their homes are clear, they have no debt, only property taxes. Are you one of them? If you are, then good luck. If not, you and I need to talk. Really. As soon as possible. Because both you and I want to make at least some money in this market. Because I’ve seen people like you telling me their tales, arguing with me, telling me they’re all set because their neighbor Jim just sold his house FSBO in a week… Then later realizing things aren’t what they seemed to be, looking at my card but being simply too embarassed to call for help. Many of them ended up either bringing check to a closing (best case scenario) or slipping into foreclosure because it turned out they’d borrowed more than their house is now worth or they’d bought more house than they can afford.

If you, dear homeseller, had only listened, I would have given you many useful advices - the ones that usually save you money. But, unfortunately, many homesellers want (and sometimes think they’re entitled) to pick our brains for free. You know that old saying about free cheese, right?

And, by the way, have I ever said the word ”commission”?

More wisdom to follow…

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody from HAVEN!