Where You Want To Be In CT

I went on 8 Listing Appointments this past week!! Two of the eight are listing NOW, the other 6 called me in for suggestions on how to get their homes ready for the SPRING market. WHAT?? Yes 4-6 months in advance. You CANNOT wait until February or March to discuss you selling plans with your Realtor. First of all, your Realtor will educate you on the current market trends and product (homes) availability. You need to know, for example, that locally as well as nationwide, we are in an inventory crisis in many price ranges. You also need to know that interest rates are projected to hit 5.5% by spring. You need to see what homes like yours are selling for right now. That is all information you need to decide if now is actually the right time for you to sell.

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Just like fishing with the right lure, pricing your home for success is finding the right level so that the Buyers will STRIKE. Currently our multiple listing service tells us that the “STRIKE POINT” is 6% above where the home eventually sells. This does not mean your home will sell 6% below its list price. It indicates that the home will not attract a buyer until it is priced within 6% of where the market is saying the value. Houses react to the market as a commodity not as a product. Their value is more relatable to stocks and bond. If everyone is buying a stock at $90, you can never sell it if you ask $100.

To determine the “strike point” you cannot rely on competing (active) properties. Sellers can PRICE anywhere they like. These are wish prices. You also cannot rely at sold prices. These prices are already old news. What you need to strongly consider are comparable properties that are PENDING. We won’t know where they have sold, but we will know where the “strike point” is.

I have heard Sellers say “I can wait”. That argument makes no sense in a buyers’ market. Time is NOT our friend and as a Realtor, our job is not only to get our Sellers the highest price but also so minimize their risk of loss. Did you know that one third (33.5% exactly) of homes listed in the New Milford, Brookfield, Danbury corridor sold within 8 weeks of being listed and that their strike point was 3.5% above value. Those with market times of over 60 days languish and end up selling for 7.2% below the asking price. Lesson, the closer you price to the value (determined by the market) the faster you will get an offer and the closer to the list price it will be. The value is the value, priced high or low. The thing that the price does is indicate to the Buyer how reasonable the seller will be. The risk in a declining market is that the VALUE is declining monthly and thus so is the “strike point”. Price it RIGHT from the beginning or be willing to make substantive Market Adjustments going forward.

If your home has been on the market longer than even 30 days it indicates that the Market (the Buyers) has rejected your Price, not necessarily your home. They will NOT make an offer if your home is priced more than 6% above the market determined value. Pricing and value are a point in time. Many things can affect value from weather, levels of inventory to changes in financing. You must look at your pricing strategy every 30 days and determine what “market corrections” you must take. Are you CHASING the market or PACING the market? No sale in 30 days… CHUNK the price. (That is a new technical term..chunking) No $5000 reductions here. A minimum of 3% and a suggestion of 5% cut is recommended. Do you want to sell or stay? The ONLY thing that stops a house from selling is PRICE. In the absence of reasonable pricing no amount of staging, marketing or improvements will net you a better bottom line.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as a bad market. There are just overpriced listings. This is NOT the fault of the Seller but a reflection of Realtors not understanding market dynamics and not willing to walk away from an unsellable listing or unrealistic Seller. A good Realtor will educate you on the trends; work together with you on pricing but also have a plan in place for CHUNKING if necessary. Your Realtor should be willing to level with you rather than lie to you just to take the listing.

I was born to be a Realtor. I didn’t realize it until I was in my mid 30’s. Really, how many people grow up wanting to be a Realtor?? The first few years were torture. I didn’t make a lot of money and hadn’t expected to. At one point, however, I wondered if the effort and the hours was worth the emotional stress I was feeling. Did you know that the “Lifespan” of the average Realtor is 10 months. Taking all of the 1,000,000 plus Realtors out there, did you know that the average income is $35,000 BEORE expenses and taxes. That is $35,000 a year NOT a month. I cried A LOT those first few years. I will never know why I stuck through it, but I am so glad I did.

Somewhere the light bulb went off. I went to a 3 day seminar and the presenter spoke to my soul. You do not sell houses, he pointed out, you sell your ability to help people move forward in their lives and find better lifestyle choices. Being a lifelong “people pleaser” I found my WHY. I don’t sell houses. I help clients move forward with confidence. I give them the information and the emotional support they need during times of stress to make decisions. Many moves are not happy moves.

I found I became very significant in the lives of my clients. I was able to find the solutions to most, never all, of their problems. I helped some move forward after divorces, death of a spouse or loss of job a job. I helped some renegotiate their mortgages so that they could stay in their homes. I helped them to define ultimate goals and gave them the mini steps they needed to rebuild credit or find more suitable housing. I found temporary housing for people after the macroburst. I helped children dispose of processions of a parent who had recently died or needed to go into a nursing home. I have battled tax amounts and found resources from everything to bats in the attic to flooded basements. I am in the people helping business. I’m not using these illustrations to pat myself on the back but to illustrate the internal satisfaction I get every day from what I do. I also found, through the trails of my client, that every dark cloud has a silver lining and that there is always hope for a better tomorrow. Sometimes you need to be the supporting bridge between where they are and where they need to be. You need to be the lever that gets them unstuck.

I also found myself surrounded by other agents with similar mindsets and referral and business resources that encouraged me to stretch beyond my comfort zone and to expand my perception of what I could accomplish. This group taught me valuable lessons about persistence, business models, empathy, technology, marketing, communication and balance (I’m still working on that one).

I love what I do. I did not look for my WHY, MY PURPOSE, it found me. I guess that is the ultimate moral of the story.

This morning, at my 7:00AM BNI Meeting (Business Networking International) I was asked to be the presenter.  Only having 5 minutes, I decided not to talk about my 32 years of experience, 35-50 homes that I sell every year but about my philosophy about real estate and my mission..with a few facts thrown in.  Below are 15 THINGS I KNOW FOR SURE.Continue Reading

Another great topic was prompted by a comment at the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce, Business Before Breakfast. One participant was commenting that she was really looking forward to Friday. I commented that my week STARTS on Friday. I thought a good topic for discussion would be “what does your Friday look like?” Others thought a better topic would be what Sunday looks like. Here is my Sunday.Continue Reading

My title today are inspired by the movie The Sixth Sense where the young boy says “I see dead people everywhere.” It was the CHALLENGE QUESTION that I threw out to the Business Before Breakfast group sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. Several had never thought that they had had a mentor and people, like myself, see Mentors everywhere. Please read on and make a point, this week, to thank those who act as your Mentors. You may find it is a longer list than you thoughtContinue Reading

There is temptation with inexperienced Realtors to sacrifice the best interests of the few to take on too many Buyers in a HOT MARKET.  There is a saying, ” The fox that chases too many rabbits catches none.”  Now, more than ever, this is an important concept. I generally will only take on 2-5 MOTIVATED buyers at a time. Otherwise I don’t have the time to get them into these “hot houses” in time.   Positioning your Buyers for success is a combination of going back to the basics and being creative in presenting your Buyers and offer.  Below you will find SEVEN RULES of how to work with Buyers in this market efficiently and THREE STRATEGIES for preparing and presenting offers.Continue Reading

Yesterday I noted how historically low the inventory is this year. I should have prefaced that BLOG by letting you know that we are currently in DUAL MARKET. It is the first time in 32 years that I have seen this, where the upper 1/3 of the market is a heavily weighted BUYERS MARKET while the lower 1/3 is strongly a SELLERS MARKET. In the lower 1/3, Buyers are getting shut out of homes because they are either taking multiple offers and Buyers did not bid high enough OR they are not quick enough to the table and the home is already under deposit. I have a few strategies for both Buyers and their Realtors. Today I will talk about strategies for Buyers.  Tomorrow I will talk about strategies Realtors should use when representing Buyers.

Advice For Buyers-
1- DO be ready to go in with a higher than asking initial offer. You may not get a second chance. There is no law or rule that says a Seller needs to ask for Highest and Best. They may accept a solid offer as written or decide to negotiate with only one offer.
2- DO NOT search multiple online sites. Get a Listingbook Account with your Agent (preferably ME). This is the ONLY way to stay absolutely current. All other sites are already behind as it can take a day or two to scrape to the site and they all list CTS (Continue to Show) homes as active. They also have the disadvantage of you having to remember to log on to see the inventory. Listingbook comes to the Buyers email as a Morning Report. It lets you know what is truly available and feeds directly off the Multiple Listing Service.
3- DO a driveby IMMEDIATELY. Don’t waste your Realtor’s time showing you homes that you later find do not have the setting or location you want.
4- DO NOT wait for an Open House. These homes are selling within 48 hours. The Realtor may still HOLD an open house to solicit Buyers. It is always OK to call the listing agent to make sure it is still available or have your Realtor do this.
4- DO bring your spouse, parents, or other decision makers on the first visit. You are not going to get the time to schedule a second showing.
5- DO get your pre approval ahead of time and either at multiple amounts or for the highest amount you for which you quality. You will not get a chance to wait until Monday if you see a home on Friday evening to do this. By giving a letter with the highest amount it is not giving away your hand. It actually shows your buying strength.
6- DO offer flexible contingencies like closing date. It is not always about the money.
7- DO offer tight contingency dates for mortgage commitment, contract signing, building inspections.
8- DO NOT make extra demands for included items such as washers and dryers that are not included in the listing.
9- DO NOT expect to get much at building inspection time. You will be negotiating only health and safety items, things that were not disclosed and things that are broken.Continue Reading

I study statistics. It is what I do in my spare time: on vacation; at midnight when I can’t sleep. It is how I develop strategies on how to advise clients in placing a value on their home. In 32 years of being a Realtor, I have never seen a market like this. Other times when we had this fast a market it was because the DEMAND was high. In this market it is because the SUPPLY is low. The number of homes actually selling is almost exactly the same as during the past 2 years.Continue Reading

As Realtor for 32 years, I see trends and have gladly embraced high tech as it relates to Real Estate and marketing listings. I know and measure what is effective and what isn’t both from the standpoint of marketing a home AND from a standpoint of self-marketing. When deciding to do an Open House on a property there has to be strategy involved. Low on that list should be to make the Seller happy. Truthfully and selfishly, my time is too valuable for that. I will generally schedule 2-6 Open Houses a week. That is how important I believe they are to my Sellers and to myself.Continue Reading