SuburbanDigs

If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again?

It's a war zone out there in local Essex County, NJ real estate, as it is almost everywhere else. Since 2008, some sellers have tried and tried again to move -- and they're still living in the same house. Rather than positioning these houses where they could really even sell, they top off pricing in a no-man's land, then endure months, even years of visits from cautious, unresponsive buyers who just aren't feelin' it, receive oodles of analytics about their market and their neighborhood sales, see all the dire headlines, all the while protesting that their agents just aren't working hard enough to make it happen. Despite relentless public feedback about what their houses DON'T have, where it AREN'T located, and what THE AREN'T priced at, our intrepid band of oblivious sellers maintain that the whole world is wrong.

Meanwhile, plenty of other homes sell, and what does that do? It reaffirms the contrarian's view that his or her house is better and deserves more -- and that next season or next year, this month's inflated price will be vindicated by that one buyer who better understands just how great the house really is.

We Realtors have been through this more times than we'll admit to counting. Just recently, I received one such seller protestation that quietly pushed me over the edge into stark, raving Realtor madness: "My objective," he announced, "continues to be to sell my home at a price consistent with my perceived value of the home and at a price that will allow me to recover the investment I have made in my home over the last several years. It is my hope that this will happen soon."

That, after six months on the market, a series of glacially arrived at price reductions totalling $80,000; about 10 showings; and another half-dozen showings rejected because the owner wouldn't accomodate less than 24 hours notice. In that time period, during which we exchanged some 75 detailed email discussions, the immediate market swelled to near 400 listings, more than 50 of them similarly priced. Meanwhile, prices of local solds that provide appraisers with tools to analyze a home's value, dropped faster than we could keep up.

Without a seller's unconditional need to sell a house today at a price consistent with the market as it is today, failure is the outcome. The seller who says he's withdrawing the listing to try again next spring or next fall at the same price, hasn't a clue about value, does not get it and doesn't feel the need to get it because - and we hear this every day - "I don't really need to sell."

If it could talk, really talk, the beleaguered real estate market itself would rise up and say it loud and clear: Then don't! Our market glut isn't exclusively from short sales and foreclosures; it's also caused by the try, try again crowd to whom every indignity associated with selling with today's real estate conditions is a badge of honor. Go figure.

To Get Or Not To Get...

The other day I received a phone call – he said by mistake – from a homeowner who last spring didn’t choose me to represent him. At the time, he mumbled that the reason who was that he thought another agent’s (regional) company had more reach than my (international) affiliation. A better fit. Wasn’t he listening? Wasn’t I communicating? Oh, well. Can’t win them all. Onward and upward.

Then, yesterday, when he called out of the blue, for an instant I thought, oh, maybe he’s figured it out. After all, he hadn't moved on his original timetable...there was hope! Not at all, as it turns out. He was looking for a notary in my office and was apparently surprised to reach me…directly. Well, this is my cell phone. I thought. Oh, he said, I found this number online and thought it was the main number.  I also thought but did not say, remember when I told you I was ubiquitous...Still, I was nothing if not cordial and, without skipping a beat, I arranged to have him visit my colleague, who stamped his documents accordingly.

While doing so, she mentioned she was surprised he hadn’t used me to list his home and he replied that he and his wife felt “I didn’t ‘get’”the house. Really?

Okay, his is a house positioned on the property in an unusual way and my experience told me that might be a problem. No sense waiting for the house to hit the market to hear people say the same thing and break the news like it was a surprise. I had also suggested that inside, he concentrate on moving out some dated furniture that I would switch out with “Pottery Barn” overstuffed leather chairs that I use for staging. I urged him to declutter his third floor, put a closet door on a closet, let me replace the rugs and generally heighten the look throughout.

That’s what I do – stage to maximize the dramatic elements of a house. Along with various other value-added options that come with hiring me, taking advantage of  visual opportunities to highlight a home – communicate what it really can be, not what it looks like raw -- is essential. Not to mention my position as a consistent top producer who has sold on his block and throughout his community, to the highest levels.

“No, she didn’t get our house,” he said. And then, he added, a bit sheepishly, I’m told: “Well, she saw it when it was a mess…”

Yes, I did. I also had to rush through my initial visit, I recall, because his wife was so busy and his daughter had a play date. When I returned with my price estimate and my PowerPoint presentation, the spouse wasn’t there at all and their daughter returned from school in the middle of it all and wanted his attention, and why shouldn’t she?

Perhaps I didn’t ‘get’ his house. He and his wife also didn’t ‘get’ me because they hadn’t carved out the time to do so.

I keep telling myself that there's a better way to do my job. Getting a listing is a complicated affair. Highly competitive, without thought, planning and perfect execution, it's not going to happen. Yet, several times this past year, I dropped everything and ran over without all that. One gorgeous, sunny Sunday at 5, just as I was sinking into the hammock with the paper, a homeowner called and said she was listing…”like right now.” Could I run over? My mind said no, but my heart said yes.  I never like to lose when I think I can win. So, I changed out of my gardening shorts, checked the MLS comps, and shot over there like a whippet. We ran through the house, which was in various states of disarray, and then I ran through my presentation in record time on her rickety café table in the backyard because she needed an analysis yesterday.

I didn’t get that one, either. She chose a brand new agent in town with apparently infinite value-added skills who ended up (not kidding!) re-sealing her driveway, mowing her lawn, moving her furniture to her own storage facility, and God knows what else. That agent ‘got’ that house.

Early New Year’s Resolution, 2010:  Just say no, I don’t work like that, Mr. Seller. If you are part of the couple or extended family who own the property, you all need to be there. You need to carve out real time for me because we need to be the same team, from square one. When I present my marketing plan, you will need to visit to my office because this is a professional meeting. Then, and only then, will I be able to ‘get’ you and your house and provide the highest level of service and top dollar for your home – and you will ‘get’ me -- in the process, fully comparing and contrasting the honest value of one Realtor over another.

But, Happy Thanksgiving and yes, I am thankful for all the great deals I had this year with the people who "got" me! And for much, much more.

 

 

Managing Expectations

That's my favorite phrase these days ... managing expectations -- for my clients, buyers and sellers alike, as well as for myself.

As a Realtor who has been in the profession almost a decade and a half, it's hard not to remember the good old days, when the only expectations we had to manage were about how high a house would sell, or how many houses a buyer would have to lose before figuring out he or she had to bid way, way over asking.

Now, expectations are in miniature: How low a buyer can safely go in with an offer; how low a seller has to go to rid himself of the property. Lots of lows, lots of misery all around. And, when the parties have finally agreed on something, comes the hard part: getting a mortgage.

The other day, a very good mortgage professional we work with sent a "managing expectations" note to one of my clients who is due to close on a home any day. The process has been relentless -- documents required up the wazoo, signatures and double signatures, more proof here, much, much more proof there. Once, it was fine to for me to witness clients' signatures on a contract with my own on just one line. Now, for every signature, another line for me to sign.

I'll refrain from asking for what real purpose such diligence exists. The other day, just days from closing, one buyer was told to her loan-to-value ratio was suddenly off-balance. The bank demanded she pay off her car loan and she did. Days past, the closing date came and went. Underwriting just stood still, with only one further comment -- that there had been no point in paying down that car loan. We finally took the client to a private banker who funded the purchase in just days.

So, I was rather touched to see the following end-run email from our mortgage friend, which in a few words telegraphed that the next few days would no doubt be harrowing: "Thanks for sending the documentation and working with my associates," he wrote to my prosective buyer. "They will have the documents reviewed by the underwriter and our operations manager to have the loan cleared to closing but please be prepared to give additional documentation all the way to the closing.  That is the nature of the mortgage industry now with the large amount of documentation required by FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  I tell clients, and especially FHA borrowers, that we will be finished supplying the underwriter with documents when you walk out of the closing. I apologize but that is the state of our industry as we dig out of this foreclosure crisis. Please let me know if you have any questions as we are with you every step of the way."

Post-apocalyptic real estate at its best.