I spent the last several days in Boston at NAR’s Association Executives Institute, and let me just say I was very impressed! More than 1300 association leaders where there, and their spirit is just indomitable. Nine out of ten AEs I spoke with said that they were beginning to see a positive change in their markets. That’s good news!
When I spoke to the group on Sunday afternoon, I gave them a sneak preview of a new video podcast I recorded for all REALTORS. The video will be posted here on the President’s Report next Tuesday, April 8th. It features the top ten tips to help you succeed in the current market. I encourage everyone to take a look and share your tips for success right here on the “Voices of Real Estate” blog.
In his commentary today, NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, explains that the economy needs a boost. By helping to stimulate the housing market, we can give our local markets and the national economy another shot in the arm. So, take a note from our AEs: keeping pushing and stay positive! — Dick Gaylord, 2008 NAR President
The biggest challenge facing Realtors today is simply lack of demand for homeownership. Would-be buyers have been beaten down by a contstant drumbeat of negativity on housing and the economy in general. The Fed, together with tax policy, can only do so much so it’s up to the Realtor community at large to trumpet the virtues of homeownership.
The current ad campaign by N.A.R. is good but I have some ideas for improvement. What would-be buyers need now more than anything is REASSURANCE and to give them that, we need to get back to basics. Here’s a sample of copy:
“WHAT IS MORE COMPELLING THAN THE POWER OF A SINGLE IDEA, TO OWN YOUR OWN HOME! FOR 232 YEARS OF WAR AND PEACE, NATURAL DISASTERS AND COUNTLESS CYCLES OF EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION, THE FAMILY HOME STANDS TALL AND STANDS PROUD! YOUR LOCAL REALTOR IS PART OF AN ARMY OF DEDICATED PROFESSIONALS ENABLING YOU TO TURN YOUR IDEA OF OWNING YOUR OWN HOME INTO REALITY. FOR EXAMPLE, IN MANY CASES IT COSTS LESS TO OWN THAN TO RENT, NOT IN 5 YEARS BUT RIGHT NOW! CALL YOUR LOCAL REALTOR TODAY AND FIND OUT HOW.”
The idea that homeownership truly IS one of our most enduring principles is very reassuring for would-be buyers. Add in the fact that it costs less right now and we have a winner!
This is what they really need right now and may help fire-up demand.
Thank you,
Steve Stegman
Broker
Market Real Estate
http://www.markethomesmd.com
1-800-248-2085
(Feel free to use any or all copy as you wish without compensation).
Great comment, Steve!
We just released a special video podcast from Dick Gaylord that hits on many of these great points. Members will receive it via e-mail today and tomorrow. In the meantime, you can see it at http://www.realtor.org/tentips.
Please keep up the great work, and continue to share your observations and comments with us!
I am a home stager, and am saddened to see that home saging was not menioned once during the top ten tips. When all the proces are the same, what do you do then, coninue to drop, or should you stage your home to sell and sell faster. Price and Presenation are VALUE, and that is what bueyrs are buying – VALUE.
-sad me.
Thanks for the comment and for checking out my latest video: Ten Tips To Boost Your Business.
http://www.realtor.org/tentips
We certainly had trouble paring the list to just ten, and I am glad that you raised this important point about presentation and staging.
I mentioned the importance of highlighting the best features of a home in Tip #5 – Push Buyer’s Hot Buttons, but it certainly deserves some additional attention.
Staging is an important part of selling, and it can make a big difference in today’s market. For those of you who are looking to stage a home to sell, there is an article on REALTOR Magazine Online that features some outstanding suggestions from a variety of industry sources:
http://www.realtor.org/rmotoolkits.nsf/pages/prop13
There also is a helpful video that talks about how you can handle the biggest challenges of staging:
http://www.realtor.org/rmomag.NSF/pages/feature1july07_stagingtips?OpenDocument
I know there are a lot of REALTORS out there who excel in this area. Does anyone else want to offer some personal tips?
The “Expand Your Horizons” tip was timely. I’ve recently returned from the CRS200 course and would recommend anyone wanting to feel a firm grasp on this business to immerse themselves in all educational opportunities related to Real Estate. I can’t begin to share how professionally informed and empowered I feel.
Thank you,
Mona Gersky
Broker Associate
Mona Gersky/Leslie Rojohn
Broker Associate Team
Coldwell Banker Woodruff
Sylva, NC
Equity Pirates: From Market Driven to Banking Driven
I am a Realtor in Southern Californis, “home of the NEW Standard of real property Valuation”. In a nutshell it is called the “short sale valuation method”.
You haven’t heard of it because nobody’s talking or should I say screaming about it.
How it works is this: Instead of the old fashioned and accepted standards of “Market Driven or what a buyer is willing to pay, standard of setting and determining what banks will lend borrowers for residential real estate purchases, or sellers can realize (equity), the BANK and the questionable borrowers now loosing their homes to the short sale , determine your homes current value.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, even after the smokescreen legislation passed, dis-allowing Banks and lending institutions from using their own “in house appraisers”, don’t sit back on your laurels yet!
Now Realtors are expected to include short sales in the Comp reports, and appraisers are using them too, in order to set the value of homes not in short sale situations. So here to are owners who have not overextended their borrowing power, keeping their loan comittments being unjustly penalized for the unregulated , run away debacle called the “sub-prime crisis”.
Please correct me if I am wrong. If you took the same home, with different borrowers in different financial situations and gave them the same loan amount, they would all be a different bottom line depending on their income, FICO scores, downpayment etc. Right? Now each one would receive a different interest rate, the logic being that those who had a history of sound managment of their personal finances and a good record of re-payment, were rewarded with a lower rate of interest. Right? Now take the typical un-qualified borrower who got away with the most exotic and risky loans sans documentation, good credit scores and lacking the ability to pay back their mortgages.Those very ones responsible (let’s leave the lenders out for a moment)for the huge collapse of our entire economy and industry. What their principal is when they enter the troubled waters of the short sale, combined with the above six lending institutions policy, inventory and private regulations, are now the determiners of the value of yours and your clients homes. Get it. Put another way , the banks have hijacked the real estate market and reguardless of seeming victories of NAR lobbiests and legislaters, have done an end run around the “market driven” standards hencewith past tense and now set the values of our real estate investments.
What a pity. In this scenario, the so called “bottom” of the real estate market will not come until all of the banks come to the end of their bailouts and forclosures. That I am told will take several more years. The optimism of the “experts” from NAR and CAR and???? is just that. The truth is that we have just started to feel the pain and unless this issue becomes an issue, the banks are still dictating our worth. They are the unquestioned mauraders of the re-distribution of everything of value we have worked so hard all our lives for.
One other prediction: Our children will not be able to go to college in the near future as the equity for such things has been stripped. Hope they like working in the service industry at minimum wages because that is all they will have.
Respectfully
Leslie Katzenmeier