William Meyersohn is my rival in the real estate business but he is of the friendly variety and the absolute, consummate professional in our industry and a legendary "Top Producer" having handled some of the priciest real estate in our area. So when he was invited to conduct a real estate seminar by one of our realtor organizations recently realtors from far and wide lined up like adoring lemmings in droves to hear him speak. I was not able to attend having overbooked myself with something or other but my office manager went and brought back some of his words of wisdom which I will share with you:
Advice to sellers and to realtors in this present "Buyer's Market";
To realtors - don't take overpriced listings. You are wasting your time. Some brokers have done damage to our profession by doing this. They went into the business when it was easy and should not be in the business today. Now they are panicking and taking overpriced listings.
To sellers - Stage your property. The property MUST BE PERFECT to sell. Get the property in shape. If you know about a problem fix it. Spend money on paint and new carpet. Eventually the buyer's inspectors will find any of these problems that are not fixed and their estimates to fix the problems are usually inflated (to protect themselves). It is best to fix the known problems prior to listing.
To sellers and realtors: Pricing is more difficult now as appraisals are an issue. Be proactive with appraisers and provide good comps.
To realtors - if your seller tells you he "doesn't have to sell" remind him that the buyer "doesn't have to buy".
To realtors and sellers - price conservatively at the beginning instead of doing a long series of reductions later. You will be ahead of the game in a depreciating market and price accordingly on the LOW end of similar properties.
To realtors and buyers - many people out looking at real estate right now are just not buyers. They are only lookers because they cannot sell their house or condo to enable them to become a buyer.
To realtors and sellers - homes are sold by referral not by ads or open houses.
To realtors - when the property is shown, make certain that the sellers AND their pets are not there.
To sellers - when you ask the question; "should I sell now" the answer is "yes, because the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. " I know today's market but I do not know tomorrow's market. There is no crystal ball.
To realtors - don't encourage your seller to pay a bonus...its a bad message to a buyer.
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