Gary Woltal's Blog

As I've delved deeper into my local MLS I've discovered provided tools or add on application software tools that generate information that many agents either don't use or don't provide to the public. They are mainly in the area of statistical analysis. Most of the public knows that a CMA can show min, max, avg figures for sale prices, days on market, square footage, etc.

But some of the cool demographic information is embedded in some MLS statistics too like:

• education level by zip or neighborhood
• age distribution
• racial / ethnicity mix
• population density
• type of housing - single family, multi-family, condo

There are all sorts of bar and line graphs that can be created to show appreicating or depreciating prices over time and avg. sales price over time by areas.

I know I have barely scratched the service in this area and haven't taken my local Statistics class yet. But as information brokers to the public we all should be well-versed in this area. Not only would it be helpful to urban planners but also to provide rich information for buyers to better understand their local housing market.

With too much gloom and doom in the news about mortgage problems and real estate prices falling we need to keep our perspective. Life has its ebbs and flows. Real estate agents in counseling clients need to remind them that a market never remains the same. Don't let a dip in a cycle get you down. Laugh a little. It's not the end of the world. Adults have problems with laughter. They seem to have lost it along the way. Children laugh on the order of 300 times a day while adults have reduced that down to about twelve. We can do better. Maybe some of us have to be encouragers to those who have forgotten how.

Hence, I bring up Mr. Potato Head. How can you not assemble the child's toy and putting the ears on backwards and just not laugh? Who invented that? Don't lie. If you're old enough you had one. Other examples of laughing through a storm include a 15 year old girl who had a leg amputated. While playing soccer she kicked the ball so hard her prosthetic leg flew off. It cracked her up and she was on the ground laughing. Another story had a 17 year old young woman in the hospital for radiation treatment for cancer. She climbed up on this table and disrobed from her hospital gown. All these workers gathered around her were staring at her. She thought this was odd until learning and bursting out laughing that these were a group of painters in smocks who were in the room to do an estimate on a paint job.

So laugh through a storm. Get that Mr. Potato Head out, or borrow one from a child, wind him up and watch him hop all over your desk. You might laugh so hard you'll start crying. And in this case, crying is good for you.

Outsourcing is very familiar for those of us that have had a technology, manufacturing or customer service background. The same concept has been around a number of years in the staff assistant world in real estate. They are called "Virtual Assistants."

Essentially if a local person is not available for your office to assist with contract to close paperwork you can hire an individual through a service company. One company I found (not endorsing) for Texas agents is called:

Open to Close 

Essentially they are transaction coordinators by proxy and have contract to close and even list to close services, differing by the fee you pay. If anyone wants to comment on this great service out there that they have found as well let us know.

In today's tenuous market the give and take between buyer and seller can be delicate at times. Oftentimes the seller prices a home 7 to 10% above what market is. If you talk to almost any seller (probably even about your own home) they all think it is worth more than it is.

The buyer has three strategies. First they could offer far less than market (say $20,000 below) and hope to negotiate up. This is the typical "low ball" offer. Next they could come in at around 5% below market and have some wiggle room and present essentially a "fair" offer. If they really want the house now, and the situation says other buyers are in competition with them they could make a full price offer and close the deal. In the good ol' days multiple buyers bid up the price beyond the asking price. This would be the case in a strong sellers market.

The danger with the low ball offer is sellers are insulted. Agents are required to present all offers and in reality any offer is a "starting point." The problem psychologically for the seller is they feel low ball offer buyers are not serious and are just trying to steal their house. They often then resort to staying firm on their asking price and are not willing to reasonably negotiate from that point forward even if their house asking price was 10% too high.

Good buyers agents have the facts at hand to know what market should be based on comps which show average prices and days on market. This coupled with looking at competitive properties around the area also gives a good idea of what market value is.

As a buyers agent be careful with the low ball offer because from that point on your client might not even be in the game if they are indeed serious about wanting the house. As an advisor to the seller when getting a low ball offer, negotiate hard back to the buyers agent as the ball is in play and let the seller know that you'll run with this one and don't get their feathers ruffled. Just see where it plays out since an offer is still an offer.

Walking by a colleague real estate agent's office I popped my head in to see how things were going. She was busy with email reading and replying. I asked how many emails she received per day. She said 150. I don't know how many emails you get a day between business and personal but that number or more requires some serious management. Or else, timewise, your life is being taken over. Some quick tips I've found to get a handle on it.

Inbound

• Review and disconnect - if you've signed up for newsletters or blog feeds two years ago that you're still getting and no longer meet your needs, unsubscribe
• Unsubscribe immediately - if new email newsletters come from new sources you may want to read one or two issues to get a feel for them but get good at unsubscribing from them if they don't fit
• Go Digest not Individual messages - if you subscribe to Group discussions like Yahoo Groups, go to your settings and select Digest not Individual mesages to get approximately one summary email per day
• Use the color highlight button in Outlook to mark red any priority messages from a manager or key individual message that you want to jump out at you
• Delete early and often and learn to speed read - I usually don't delete purely on subject other than if the Spam filter lets the Viagra or Nigerian prince come through, but read paragraphs quickly and delete quickly
• Use a Blackberry, Treo, or other device to look at subjects throughout the day and stay on top of email. One colleague I know left unopened email remain for days at a time. He is way behind now!

Outbound

• Write a very clear subject message line for your reader
• Be nice with the etiquette. NO ALL CAPS! Don't say anything derogatory.
• Be of value with your message. Have something vs. nothing to say
• The #1 rule - BE BRIEF. Get to the point in the first paragraph
• Try not to send large file attachments. 3 MB and smaller if at all possible
• Never, ever, Reply All, and get some kind of innane ping pong thread going back and forth
• Use common sense with outbound email and send it to those who might actually like you and care that you are contacting them, vs. them seeing your name and immediately hitting DELETE
• Try to proofread, and spell check your composition at least a little bit so it makes sense
• YOU don't have to write 150 emails a day either. Take a break from writing sometime
• Check your hyperlinks that they work before sending them out
• Leave clear contact information in your signature
• Leave information on what to do when you are out of office for extended periods of time
• Finally, remember email is fast and efficient BUT it is not the only way to communicate. Write a handwritten letter, send a greeting card or gift or thank you note through snail mail, call by phone, or have a face to face meeting here and there. Get AWAY from the computer. Not only get a life, but reclaim your life

Some say to check email at fixed times like twice a day. I think that is old school, and if you are connected now nearly constantly, check it as often as you like, and don't feel guilty about it. There is no hard and fast rule in this area. I've noticed people age 30 and under check email and instant messages almost like watching TV - any time of the day they feel like it.

Being one who has never been good at the all thumbs entry for text messages I longed for a better way. If you are like me and can type faster from your PC and like the bigger keyboard here's your solution:

Just enter the cell phone number followed by the domain as the example shows 2145551212@teleflip.com

Enter a subject line and type a brief message. The message will be sent to the phone. It's free to the sender but the recipient will be charged for the text message according to his plan.

If a buyer that a realtor is working with is meeting them at a property and calls for the address while driving, just message his cell phone and he'll have the address record right in his hand and it's safer than writing while driving.

A nifty idea that's very easy to do.

Sitting in traffic in suburbia one day it dawned on me how important traffic patterns are to where you live. I've heard it said that before you buy a house you need to leave the house location and drive to work in the morning and likewise drive from your work location and drive to that house location in the evening, during rush hour. I would add to that also drive from the house location to stores on the weekend.

You'd be amazed by doing this little exercise what you will discover. Though you might like the lovely house in the Master Planned Community, with the pool, golf course and the friendly neighbors, you hate the back and forth traffic. This of course isn't true in all areas of the country. But the U.S. population just seems to be increasing everywhere.

Taking into mind traffic patterns on where you choose to live I think is vastly underestimated.  Better to find out up front than hate where you live a month or two into ownership. Check with the knowledgeable local REALTOR. They can tell you about forecasted expansion of roads and about new development coming to a corner near you. Nothing's guaranteed with traffic but you need to put that little item on your checklist of things to watch out for, not to mention road noise next to your property.

I'm always amused how people take commonplace aphorisms and twist them in some new way. Most have heard about what mainly is important in the value of real estate - the three L's - location, location, location. Another writer said it was the three T's - timing, timing, timing. Well in the value of a real estate "agent" let me add the three R's - relationship, relationship, relationship. Why is this important? Because when it comes to crunch time going through the 192 steps it takes to get a house sold, WHO YOU GONNA CALL? Your valuable REALTOR!!

This not all encompassing list of who an experienced REALTOR knows include:

• Title companies
• Home inspectors
• Loan resources / mortgage professionals
• Real estate attorneys / other legal counsel
• Notaries
• Homebuilders
• Foundation repair companies
• Handymen and painters, plumbers, sprinkler experts
• Roofers, window installers, insulation experts, electricians, sheetrock work
• Air Conditioning / Heating companies
• Furniture companies, upholstery repair
• Photographers / graphics design experts
• Carpeting companies
• Box and moving companies
• Staging professionals
• Landscape companies, lawn mowers, fertilizer-weed control firms
• Associations of other REALTORs including buyers agents, and out of town agents
• Appraisers
• Photographers
• Pool companies
• Pest services
• Fence companies
• Local community boards in Planning and Zoning areas
• Apartment Finders / Temporary housing resources
• Couriers and shipping companies
• Florists, card companies, gift giving companies
• Tax, financial planners, investment contacts
• Home and Auto Insurance agents

The list can be endless. The point is besides "local knowledge" the relationships to OTHER service professionals a REALTOR brings to the table are invaluable in getting solutions you need to achieve your housing goals.

I talked with a mortgage professional who was very good with his database marketing. He added names over time and developed friendly HTML newsletters to email his clients, acquaintances, and prospects. The keys to his success were a non - threatening, non - salesy informative newsletter and above all CONSISTENCY. One of his clients commented at their last face to face meeting that he was the nicest pest she had ever met.

In database marketing consistency is very much a key. But being helpful in giving relevant or interesting information to the reader (kind of like blogging) is very important. He said he rarely had anyone unsubscribe from the list. That too, shows he's offering something of value and keeping top of mind the company name, the individual's name, and the company's services and contact information.

We all should be so lucky by design to be labeled a nice pest!!

A sales manager once explained to me that Sales and Customer Service are about the business of love. Not romantic love but caring and concern for the true benefit of others. In real estate we are given the opportunity to do that each and every day.

Mother Teresa had a great quotation in this area. "Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."

The world has the desire to be loved. Clients should be assured that REALTORS pay close attention to their needs. They should return phone calls, communicate clearly, provide solutions, act with integrity as the REALTOR professional they are, offer encouragement, and show the way to achieving their housing goals. Agents should also be nice. That seems to be a long lost trait. The field of real estate in some instances gets the rap of having too many prima donnas and out of control egos. There are going to be some who are unethical. But being nice as your mother might say can never be done enough to clients, other agents (despite heated negotiations), office staff, and all other working partners.

Showing the love goes a long way to making a top producer as an agent and as an overall "good guy or gal" in society. You can do it. It makes all the difference in the world.