WolfTeam News

I was on a listing appointment talking to a seller who had sold a few homes in his life.  The seller made an unusual comment during my presentation to the effect of  “all agents do to sell a home is to list the property in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service ).”  I was a bit taken back because I haven’t had someone actually say something like that out loud!

A dandelion just before the wind blows!

I spent the next hour detailing what we do to find a buyer and get the sale closed.  The list goes something like this:

We do a detailed market study paying attention to active home competition, recent similar “pending” properties, as well as sales on the street and neighborhood.  How long do properties like the subject take to sell on the average?  What is the most likely financing?  On the average, how close is offered price to the list price?  We would make a non-emotional and objective recommendation to the seller as how to price his home.

We would make recommendations on both curb appeal and home staging or cleanliness items to get the properties “best-foot forward”.

We council our sellers on how to show their home to it’s best potential.

Of course, we immediately place the property in the Multiple Listing Service, but NOT before we are ready to show the home and have everything we need including professional quality photographs, virtual tours and all disclosures, surveys and other items so we immediatelyhit the ground running.  When the property hits the MLS “hot-sheet” as a new listing, we want any agents or buyers to have access to everything including photographs and virtual tours!

Modern technology makes it easy to make any seller documents, surveys and disclosures available immediately online.  Good real estate licensee’s put those online right away so any interested party can have fast access to them.

In our market it is customary to put a lock-box on the door, a sign in the yard and good quality color flyers on the sign as well as property “hand-outs” inside the home.

We email our client everything and ask if they feel we missed any selling point on their home, we make the seller an active participant in the marketing, if they want to be.

We begin to upload the property details to a multitude of real estate websites so that the property is really marketed nationally via the Internet, hopefully to the major real estate sites someone may be watching.

Our own websites such as www.AlaskanHome.com gives us plenty of room to showcase property details and photographs.

Nothing takes the place of quickly responding to both phone calls and email inquiries! The real estate market can be 24/7 and the Dan Wolf Team make every attempt to answer our phones and respond quickly to email. 

And the marketing is just the tip of the iceberg.  You won’t have a sale if you don’t negotiate effectively and “bullet-proof” your transactions!  An agent should be able to provide a “seller net sheet” on an offer to closely estimate what a buyer’s net will be at closing after the house is paid off and all bills are paid.

Your offers have to be properly documented.  I could write another entire post about making sure you are ready to close when the buyer and seller have agreed to close.  Don’t forget that title report, resale certificate or to order that appraisal!  If repairs come up on the home inspection, do you have contractors to make those repairs correctly, quickly and not charge too much.

I didn’t even mention all the emotions and personalities an agent can become involved with when selling homes for divorced people, stressed people, first time home buyers and myriad of other circumstances!