We Never Talk Anymore

March 20, 2011 By Kristen Wheatley 1 Comment

When you first list your home, you seem to hear from your Realtor® all the time. As time goes on, do you find yourself only talking to them when you initiate the call?

This is probably the #1 complaint I hear from owners of unsold homes.

“When we first listed with him, he seemed so excited about our home. Now we only hear from him when he wants to drop the price or if we call him.”

In many respects, partnering with a Realtor® to sell your home is like the dating phase of a relationship. Like all relationships, communication is the key to success.

Your Realtor® may be working very hard behind the scenes to get your home sold, but if you never hear from him/her, how are you supposed to know that? Trust will start to dwindle and you may begin to question his/her motivations.

Strong communication is crucial to your success. An effective agent should have a quick and detailed answer to the weekly question of “What have you done for me lately?” Better still, your Realtor® should beat you to the phone and call you every week with a marketing and status update, following up with periodic mailings or emails detailing the activity for your home’s listing.

For your part, be sure to let your Realtor® know when you are leaving town and how to get in touch with you. Time is of the essence when an offer does come in for your home.

4 Critical Characteristics Of All Effective Realtors®

March 20, 2011 By Kristen Wheatley Leave a Comment

The 4 Critical Characteristics of all effective Realtors®.

When you hire a real estate agent to sell your home, you are basically contracting with a professional to partner with you and use their expertise and resources to help you reach your goal of a successful home sale with the most agreeable terms and time frame.

Like you, your agent cannot control the real estate market or the price a willing and able buyer will pay for your home. However, there are several factors within your agent’s control that can impact the success of your home’s sale. These have proven over time to be the four critically important characteristics shared by all effective Realtors®.

Knowledge of the local real estate market: Only research and hard data can provide the information necessary for finding the best pricing position for your home. An effective Realtor cannot give pricing advice simply on experience or a gut feeling. Questions: Can your agent explain and show you stats for your area? Does he/she know the average selling price and days on market for similar homes? Did your agent ask you what you thought your home was worth and then produce a market analysis that matched your price?
Communication: How quickly and fully your Realtor responds to buyer and agent inquiries can mean the difference between a potential sale and losing a buyer to another property. Questions: Does your agent communicate regularly with you and respond to you in a timely manner? If not, how quickly do you think they respond to potential buyers of your home?
Details: An affective agent takes the time to fully and accurately enter your home’s information into the MLS. Questions: Have you seen your home’s MLS listing? Are there ample quality photos? Are there typos or mistakes in the listing? Have the photos been updated to reflect the current season?
Marketing: This challenging market requires new strategies. An effective agent makes use of the best tools and resources available and uses a systematic and strategic marketing plan. Simply placing ads in the paper or uploading your home once onto a few websites is not enough. Questions: Does your agent have a quality website and a strong internet presence? Does your agent use virtual tours, or better yet You Tube videos to market homes? Does your agent use facebook and blogs to continue to put fresh content about your home in front of potential buyers, or are they using print ads to market themselves instead of your home?

So how do you know who to choose?

Do you go with the agent who helped you buy your home?…the biggest name in town? …the one with the prettiest signs? …the one who gives you the highest price or charges the lowest commission?

There are literally tons of choices for home owners.

First, you need to have a Realtor that you feel confident about. One that can demonstrate to you that they are competent, capable, and knowledgeable about the local market.

Second, you need a Realtor that you feel comfortable with. A home is one of the highest priced and most personal things most people will sell in their lifetime. The person you choose to assist you should be someone you feel comfortable confiding in and communicating freely with so that the process can go as smoothly as possible.

Last, but not least, you need a Realtor who uses the latest tools and technology effectively to get your home the most exposure possible. Your Realtor needs to have an organized and effective marketing plan, a solid knowledge of the local market and your home’s position in it, and he/she must be someone who communicates regularly with you and is responsive to potential buyers and other agents who may have buyers interested in your home.

If you read this post and said to yourself, “I want one of those Realtors!”, please feel free to complete the form below and I will gladly discuss your home’s sale with you. Then you can decide if we would make a good team.

If you are outside of the Lewiston/Auburn area (30 mile radius,) please feel free to use the form as well and I will happily put you in touch with a trusted agent in your area.

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Your Agent’s Role in Price

March 20, 2011 By Kristen Wheatley 3 Comments

While price and condition are the 2 factors within your control, your agent still does play a huge role. The question for home sellers is…

“Would you rather hear the truth, or have a “yes man” agent?”

I firmly believe that almost all home sellers would rather hear the truth.

I don’t believe agent’s are trying to purposely lie to potential home sellers. There are just some agents out there who seem so worried that they are going to disappoint or upset a homeowner, that they end up glossing over some of the harder truths.

Whenever I see this scenario play out I always think of Jack Nicholson’s famous line from A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth!” I would argue that yes, you not only can handle the truth, but you deserve it and should demand it.

Most homeowners only see the prices that homes are listed for, not what they actually sell for. Your agent’s responsibility is to:

Provide you with good data.
Provide a thorough analysis of that data.
And provide recommendations for a pricing strategy that will meet your time frame and net you the most money possible from the sale of your home.

When a real estate agent presents their pricing recommendation to you, the first questions you should ask them is “Why?” A competent agent will not be offended and should have valid and detailed reasons and data they can point out to you that will support their price.