CATHY SLOAN's Discussions

Haven't had anyone from Ireland.  Germany, France, Great Britain, Japan, Trinidad, Columbia, Bermuda, Bahamas and of course Canada they all know RE/MAX and expect better qualified Realtors. Your concept sounds interesting.  My husband is a Realtor.  I suggested he take a look at your concept.  Maybe you're on to something.  Our flat fee MLS Discounters are all pretty much located in another part of the state but do listings all over the state.  MLS Recriprocal linking.  They do minimal marketing.  Its a hit or miss when you are making an appointment with the home owner.  I had one home owner call me back 3 days later to see if we still wanted to see his home.  My buyer already had a contract on something.  I show those but gee I really hate tracking down the homeowners so I can show the listing.  Do you have that problem or do you get a more motivated seller?

Our fees are high because we have a really nice office and a large staff. Our office is one of 4  owned by the same Broker, that are equally as nice. The office expense is divided among the agents in the office. $400 is actually the RE/MAX fee for Local, state & Internatinal RE/MAX for home office agents.  Its only about $200 more if you keep an office at RE/MAX.  We can pop into any of our offices and use equipment, conference rooms etc. RE/MAX also gives us free referrals from the RE/MAX.com site Do you get a fair share of your FSBOs that list with agents you refer?

Hey NewbieDo you have any idea how much a month you will need to pay for the Homeowners Insurance and Properlty Tax?  In North Florida it would be a little ovr $1,000 a month.  Not sure where you are but we've been told by some that our Property tax is low in comparison to the Northeast.  A lot of newbies don't realize the payment is more than the Payment calculator states.

I'm glad he's the one making the payments.  I like watching my nest egg grow. Although it hasn't grown much this past year.  

NTETS The appraisers are having to justify their appraisals, now more than ever.  My last two sales both met with appraisal difficulties.  The first on a small townhome appraised in December 07 for 93,500.  The buyer got a severe case of buyers remorse and walked away from the sale 2 hours prior to closing forfeiting her escrow to the seller. Within 3 weeks the town home sold again.  Odd this buyer used the same bank  BoA.  The appraisal performed 8 weeks after the first came in as $90,000.  B o A refuesed to allow the seller to challenge the new appraisal.  The seller chose to reduce the price and change some terms in the contract which allowed both buyer & seller to share in the difference between appraisal and original selling price. My 2nd appraisal was again on a small home with 1/2 acre of land.  Underwriting requested two more comps to justify the appraisal.  After the appraiser submitted the two comps the asked him to provide one more.  That appraisal has 6 comps to justify the selling price.  Buy the way that home appraised 2,500 over the selling price. The third situation I had with an appraisal in November was two appraisers called me to appraise one home.  I was told it was the policy of that credit union to have a 2nd appraisers apraisal on file.  The appraisers were not aware of each other until I told them there were two companies appraising the property. It's not the appraisers its the Banks. 

Patrick's Idea sounds like a winner.  Especially for anyone who needs buyer's.  Everyone's looking for a deal. As far as great open houses, I haven't had one in a long while.  The last open House I did, I called all the agents who had a listing in the neighborhood and asked them to have an open house the same date and time. Here's what happened.  5 Realestate Brokerages and 6 homes. 6 houses in one of the best school districts all within a few blocks of one another. Flyers sent out to every agent in the 5 offices. Flyers and e-mail notification to all other offices in a 5 mile radius.  6 Signs posted 2 days prior with date and time at the entrance of the neighborhood.  Every house with Open house sign with date and time posted 6 days before the open house.  3 of us advertised in Classifieds.  All agents  posted Open house notification in Realtor.com and MLS.  I did a TV spot on the Real Estate Channel. The first house, 2 blocks from the entrance got 1 visitor.  Not one person stopped in at the other listings.  These were nice homes .  See photo.  

I guess my question is:  Has anyone had a really successful open house in the past year.

I recall in 1974 or 75, there was double digit mortgage interest rates.  New construction was was down the tubes, Condo projects in Florida were bankkrupt.   The Feds came out with a plan to give a tax rebate to anyone who purchased a new builder's home.  I don't recall the details.  This was before I became a Realtor.  I did build a new home during this time but not because of this rebate.  Seems the Feds got the rebate idea after I had already moved in. However, they backdated the plan to include closings that took place During Dec of the preceeding year.  It was the first time I had ever gotten a Tax refund.  The rebate amount was handled pretty much like the current rebate.  The amount I received was substantial several thousand $$.  Does anyone recall if that rebate made any significant change in the economy.  I used half to buy furniture.

JasonYou are not alone in your thinking aparently many of our peers believe as you do.  This Fact really helps in my marketing presentations.  Because of the expense, I am selective about the listings I market. Since the #1 method of 'sorting' listings on Realtor.com is by featured tour, it's clear that the Buyers want to see tours of properties, yet roughly 10% are bothering to provide what the Buyer is looking for! Good for those of us who do.Seems like a perfect marketing opportunity that is being missed or disregarded in a big way.I realize there is a heated debate about Realtor.com and many Realtors do not like this site and refuse to pay them a dime. However, it IS the #1 real estate site on the web, more that 6,600,000 visitors a month, and 80% of buyers start their search on the web. It's all about EYEBALLS, and love it or hate it, it seems you are doing a disservice to your customers by not providing a Virtual Tour or a Video Tour of your listings.  At least offer tours in MLS  I just ran a quick MLS search of homes sold in the past 3 months in one area of my city a little over 300 SOLD.  Resuls: the frist 25 SOLD listings from that search 23 had virtual or a video tours and 2 had less than 3 photos.  13 of those were Virtual tours, 10 Video tours,  2 were REO properties.  I am not going to check all 300.  Chances are if I did the stats won't change enough to make me stop spending the $$$ to market with tours. I had a closing on one of my listings in January to a buyer who never entered my listing until the day before closing.  He bought it  based upon the Video Tour, Virtual tour and multiple slide photos.  I do all three.

New York Real Estate law is different from most other states.  An attorney has to write the actual contract to purchase.  Sounds like they do a written offer as a preliminary to the actual contract, If the offer does't secure the home,  why do it?  In Florida there is a 10 day contingency  period to have inspections done and a 5 day contingency period to review the findings and reject the offer. Total of 15 days from date of acceptance)  If Buyer does not reject in writing, within the 15 day period, the transaction proceeds. The home can continue to be shown. Back up offers can be accepted.  The first back-up offer can replace the original accepted offer if the buyer rejects the home within the 15 day period.